Collecting Stories about the Harms of Gene Patenting
As we await the Supreme Court's decision about whether it will review a landmark lawsuit challenging human gene patents, the ACLU has launched a public education campaign to collect and showcase personal stories about how gene patenting harms people.
The campaign is called "Taking Back Our Genes," a reminder that gene patenting is both a personal and a societal problem. As an ACLU blog post puts it, "There is something fundamentally wrong with allowing companies to own the rights to pieces of the human genome."
The Center for Genetics and Society has joined in two amicus curiae briefs [1, 2] supporting the lawsuit. For those who haven't been following its journey through the courts, here's the ACLU's quick summary:
In 2009, twenty medical professional associations, geneticists, genetic counselors, patients, and breast and women’s health groups, represented by the ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), filed a lawsuit challenging patents on two human genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. Recently a divided appeals court ruled that companies may patent the genes, reversing a trial court’s invalidation of the patents. We have petitioned the Supreme Court to hear an appeal of the case, and our petition is currently pending.
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