Wednesday, April 2, 2014

What Do Gene Patents Have to Do with It?


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                      Continued From 3/31/14


What Do Gene Patents Have to Do with It?

    Since the mid-1940’s, genomics and the patenting of genes
has grown exponentially. At present, nearly 20 percent of the
entire human genome, or some 4,000 genes, are covered by at
least one US patent. These include genes linked with Alzheimer’s
disease, colon cancer and asthma. Myriad Genetics8 owns the
exclusive patent for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. As explained
by The New Yorker:

    "Anyone conducting an experiment on them without a license
can be sued for infringement of patent rights. This means that
Myriad can decide what research is carried out on those genes,
who can do that research, and how much any resulting therapy or
diagnostic test will cost."

    Needless to say, this has profound implications for medicine.
As stated by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU):

   Through its patents, Myriad has the right to stop anyone
from using these genes for clinical or research purposes. It
has therefore locked up a building block of human life.

    In her op-ed, Jolie states that this has got to be a priority
to ensure that more women can access gene testing and
lifesaving preventive treatment, pointing out that the cost of
genetic testing is an obstacle for many. The root of that
problem lies with our current patent laws, which allow for the
patenting of human genes and other life forms. According to
the ACLU, which is the plaintiff in another gene patent lawsuit
heard by the Supreme Court in April, Myriad recently raised
the price of their genetic test from $3,000 to over $4,000,
even though gene testing technologies have advanced to the
point where you can sequence ALL of your genes, about 23,000
or so, for as little as $1,000.

    The Supreme Court will decide in a matter of weeks whether
human gene patents will continue to be allowed or not, and
if they are, you can expect prices for gene-related medicine to
continue to skyrocket and become increasingly monopolized.


It’s Starting to Look Like a Coordinated Yet Cleverly Designed
PR Campaign...

    When looking at a number of different yet related events,
this whole thing is starting to look like a well-coordinated
PR push where a number of companies and industries stand to
gain. The only real loser in this game appears to be women in
general...
First, as we predicted would happen months ago, the Supreme
Court ruled in favor of Monsanto in the Monsanto vs. Bowman
case12 on May 13, thereby affirming that a patent holder can
control the use of its patent through multiple generations of
seed. Alas, the implications of this ruling go far beyond
agriculture. It will also have implications for other businesses
such as vaccines, cell lines, and human genes.

    What this ruling does is grant ownership of genetic material
in perpetuity. A silly but simple analogy would be that if you
own the patent to a dog trait, and your dog with that trait
impregnates all the neighbors’ dogs, all the pups would be yours,
as would the pups of those pups, and so on. As we predicted, the

Supreme Court only took this case to protect the biotech industry
by setting precedent. There is very little morality left in our
fascist federal government, and that includes most of its
agencies, including the IRS, FDA, and FTC. They’re all
operating for political and industrial gains.

    In Monsanto vs. Bowman, Justice Kagan justified the
unanimous decision to allow living, self-replicating organisms
and their offspring to be licensed property of the patent owner
due to financial interests. A patent would plummet in value
after the first sale of the item containing the invention, she
said. And just seconds into Bowman’s attorney’s opening
arguments,

Chief Justice Roberts interrupted him by asking “why anyone
would ever patent anything if Bowman were to prevail?

    That and more indicated that it was a closed case right
from the start... Justice Breyer went so far as referencing the
infamous law13 Buck vs Bell14 (that still stands in the US to
this day, which legitimizes government-forced sterilization and
vaccination) when he said: There are three generations of seeds.
Maybe three generations of seeds is enough. This was a spin on
Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's statement:

        "It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting
to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve
for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are
manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle
that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover
cutting the Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are
enough."

    It’s a chilling thought when you consider the potential
implications this case can have on the trend of patenting of
human enes and other life forms. Over 20% of the human
genome is already patented, and the old eugenics movement
has a lot in common with the burgeoning anti-choice movement
when it comes to vaccinations and other medical treatments,
including cancer treatment for minors. Children have been
taken from their parents for refusing to follow the conventional
cut-poison-burn cancer treatment plan for their ailing children,
even though statistics and research clearly shows that
chemotherapy is typically what ends up killing the patient,
even when the cancer itself is conquered!

GMO Opponents Are 'Elitist' and Insensitive to World’s Needs,
Monsanto CEO Says

    If the idea of a new eugenics movement is not enough,
Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant was recently quoted15 stating that
opponents who want to block genetically modified foods are
guilty of elitism and fail to consider the needs of the rest
of the world. Thank goodness the CEO of a $58 billion
multinational corporation, which last year paid him over $14
million, is ready to stand up to the selfish elitists opposing
his plan to save the world...

    But I digress... On May 14, one day after Big Biotech was
granted patent rights to genetic material in perpetuity,
Angelina Jolie’s op-ed comes out, and the very next day, biotech
stocks took a jump. Then on the 16th, Arthur Caplan, director of
the Division of Bioethics at New York University's Langone
Medical Center, pens a CNN op-ed applauding Jolie’s brave
message.

Chillingly, he ends his article with:

    As the U.S. pushes forward into health reform,  Jolie's
story reminds us that we need to adjust our health care system
from one that pays for treatment to one that also covers
prevention.

   Prevention here meaning a $4000 test that if positive results
in amputation of a non-diseased organ... According to reports,
18 Jolie is also planning to remove her ovaries to limit her
risk of ovarian cancer a decision that leads to ‘surgical
menopause,’ which requires careful hormone replacement and
monitoring.

    Truly, we need to drive home the message that testing is
NOT prevention. Testing is a diagnostic tool that has nothing
to do with actually preventing disease. True prevention requires
taking a close hard look at lifestyle choices, as well as making
some radical changes to a wide range of industries that don’t
want to change the way they do business. Toxic chemicals are
oftentimes far cheaper to use than all-natural ones. And toxins
drive cancer processes in your body...

The Angelina Effect Don’t Be Swayed...

    Deception by the agricultural, food, biotech, chemical, and
personal care product industries are primary drivers of most
of the chronic and deadly diseases plaguing our modern society.

They’re poisoning you from all angles, and then pretend to have
the solutions... Parallel with this mockery of a science-based
health care system, federal agencies have been cleverly manipulated
by highly leveraged lobbying to force you to pay for most of
this by tax subsides, and federal regulatory agencies limiting
your choices.

    Within days of her coming out, Jolie again graced the cover
of TIME magazine with the words: “The Angelina Effect Angelina
Jolie’s double mastectomy puts genetic testing in the spotlight.
What her choice reveals about calculating risk, cost, and peace
of mind.

    I have no special insights about what this woman has been
thinking, but I certainly don’t blame her. To me she is merely
a victim of sophisticated and clever techniques that have
successfully twisted common sense on its head. She has learned
to trust and believe in the system that has created this insanity.
The PR campaign that catalyzed her decision is clearly aimed at
deceiving naïve and preoccupied people into an utterly flawed
system motivated primarily by corporate greed not by any
compassion or desire to decrease human suffering.

    I don’t fault Jolie for any of it. She, like everyone else,
made the best decision she could based on the information she
was given or sought out. Few people have enough time to study
and understand the complexity of system that has evolved for
over a century.

    In this case, the goal is not to empower you to make
proactive decisions about your health. It’s about herding you
into the fold of the most profitable industries in the world.
Myriad Genetics alone rakes in approximately half a billion
dollars in revenue each year. Genetic testing for breast cancer
accounts for 85 percent of their total revenue, and again, they
have complete and total control of this niche since they own
the patent for the BRCA genes. Salon magazine recently wrote
an article titled
"How One Company Controls Your Breast Cancer Choices:"

        Myriad’s monopoly over BRCA1 and BRCA2 not only means
showing that it can charge whatever it wants for the test;
it also means that further research on the genes is restricted,
and that women who take the test and get an ambiguous result
can’t get a second opinion, only take the test again. An ambiguous
result can mean the difference between removing breasts or ovaries
or leaving them intact.

        The economic and racial implications of all this are major,
both for how the research has been done and who gets access to it.
In a video on the case, the ACLU points out, Initial gene studies
focused on white women. And now the patents make it more
difficult to learn what some mutations mean in women of color,
because Myriad has total control over researchers’ access to those
mutations. ... Myriad’s patent on the genes expires in two years,
but the Supreme Court’s ruling will set the broader principle going
forward. For now, Jolie’s Op-Ed has apparently made Myriad’s
stock price rise 4 percent, its best level in years.

Nearly Every Part of the Human Genome Is Now Owned by
Corporations

    Ironically, just as we’re entering the age of individualized
medicine, doctors’ ability to actually employ such advancements
for the benefit of their patients is being profoundly undermined
and restricted. As recently stated by Christopher E. Mason22 of
Weill Cornell Medical College: “You have to ask, how is it
possible that my doctor cannot look at my DNA without being
concerned about patent infringement?

    Mason recently published a study in the journal Genome
Medicine, in which he and his co-author, Jeffrey Rosenfeld, an
assistant professor of medicine at the University of Medicine &
Dentistry of New Jersey, show that when you include both genes
and DNA sequences inside the genes, nearly the ENTIRE human
genome is covered by patents! What this does is render medicine
prohibitively expensive.

 Under the Affordable Care Act, BRCA genetic testing is classified
as preventative care, which means no out-of-pocket cost for those
deemed eligible. But as stated by Policy Mic:

    Affordable Care Act money should be used to provide medical
care that is expensive for a reason, not to prop up an unfair and anti-
competitive monopoly.

Thank You  Dr. Mercola


                  Continued 4/04/14


 God Bless Everyone & God Bless The United States of America.

Larry Nelson
42 S. Sherwood Dr.
Belton, Tx. 76513
cancercurehere@gmail.com

Have a great day...unless you have made other plans.

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