UK Activists: End Gene Patents

[Seth Johnson <seth.johnson@RealMeasures.dyndns.org>]

(Forwarded from Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism
list, ipcb@ipcb.org)

Subject: UK Activists seek end to patents on genes
   Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2002 10:14:04 -0800
   From: Debra Harry <dharry@ipcb.org>

http://www.ananova.com/yournews/story/sm_509844.html

UK Activists seek end to patents on genes

British activists say 500,000 patents have been applied for
on genes or gene sequences worldwide.

GeneWatch UK says an increasing number of genetic
researchers are trying to ensure they profit from each DNA
discovery by using the patents.

The US Patent and Trademark Office alone has already issued
approximately 20,000 patents on genes or gene-related
molecules.

25,000 more applications are pending and hundreds of
international activists plan to launch a coordinated
campaign to abolish such private control of DNA. They say
genetics is being monopolized for profit to the detriment of
world health.

The activists, whose protest was timed to coincide with the
World Economic Forum in New York City, say patent lawyers
now aggressively enforce patents on living things that
should never have been issued.

In Philadelphia, for instance, a university stopped testing
700 anxious women a year for a genetic predisposition to
breast cancer because its lab was accused of violating a
biotechnology company's patents.

"I'm quite disgusted," said a researcher at University of
Pennsylvania, who abandoned years of breast cancer research
after Myriad Genetics warned her she was trespassing on the
company's intellectual property. She said the company placed
restrictions on her which made her work too difficult
adding: "My work went down the drain."

Around 250 other groups have joined the anti-gene patent
campaign, being announced at the World Social Forum in
Brazil. They say all countries should share ownership of
genetic material.

Story filed: 01:23 Friday 1st February 2002

Copyright © 2002 Ananova Ltd

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