Gene patenting
Gene patenting is a type of license from the government that gives the right to some companies to control the use of the gene they have patented. Nowadays, gene patenting has become a hot debate all over the world. There are those who believe that human genes should not be patented such as Michael Crichton. He wrote an article named “Patenting Life” in the New York Times against gene patenting. On the other hand, there are also some people who believe that some types of genes can be patented such as John E. Calfee. He also wrote an article named “Decoding the use of Gene Patents” in The American Magazine. The article explained his thought about why human genes can be patents. However, gene patenting is an important thing that …show more content…
Additionally, no one would be happy if they find out that gene patents were blocking them from the innovation that may help them from deadly disease. Back in the day “when SARS was spreading across the globe, medical researchers hesitated to study about it because of patent concerns”, (Crichton, 2007, p.442). As a result, SARS has killed millions people around the world because there is no effective anti- SARS vaccine. This is an obvious example to prove that gene patents not only inhibit research but also block innovation and put everyone all at risk, (Crichton, 2007). On the other side, Calfee (2009) emphasized that some tests were not developed until medical researchers invested their time, and companies that sponsor the researchers, invested the company’s money. Then, they should have the right to patent something that their investments went towards. For example, University of Utah and Myriad Genetics should be able to patent or co-own a diagnostic test for the BRCA-1 and BRCA-2 or breast cancer test because they invested their time and money to study it. Even though Myriad scientists helped identify the gene that caused the risk of breast cancer, and they can also provide high quality test for breast cancer genes, they should not patent the test and block other researchers or …show more content…
However, not everyone gets what he or she wants in life. For example, whenever a person gets sick and doctor doubts that he or she may have a harmful disease such as cancer but the doctor cannot give the patient a medical test because of gene patents. It is really bad when a doctor cannot get relevant information and cannot give effective medical treatment to their patients because costs of gene patents are too high. Then, the only thing that the doctor can do for their patients is just give them a medical treatment that extends the life of the patient but those patients will not be able to be cured of the disease. Calfee (2009) wrote in his article, even if a gene patent gives seller has a monopoly on their product or test, which can be sold at monopoly prices but prices of patented tests are not dramatically or consistently higher than those tests without a monopoly. Also, patented tests are usually consequent pricing power as a tool to foster innovation. Although the companies spend money that they earn form patented tests to improve the test and patient care but prices of patented tests such as BRCA gene tests are still too steep for the patients and insurance provider companies. Insurance companies may cover most of the cost of the tests but patients still have some out-of-pocket expenses or co-pay to with their insurance companies because prices of patented test are too expensive. Crichton