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JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute 2000 92(3):184-186; doi:10.1093/jnci/92.3.184
© 2000 by Oxford University Press
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Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol. 92, No. 3, 184-186, February 2, 2000
© 2000 Oxford University Press

NEWS

Gene Patent Race Speeds Ahead Amid Controversy, Concern

Tom Reynolds

With the announcement last month that a biotechnology company has sequenced more than 90% of the human genome, the race to license and patent human genes continues to heat up—as does the controversy. The most important and lucrative hoard of intellectual property ever is up for grabs. But geneticists, physicians, and medical ethicists are joining the chorus of protest against those doing the grabbing and the way they are doing it.

Religious organizations, along with biotechnology critics such as Jeremy Rifkin of Washington, D.C.’s Foundation on Economic Trends, formed the vanguard of opposition to gene patenting. In 1995, a coalition of more than 80 religious groups held a press conference denouncing all patents involving human genes, including patents on transgenic animals.



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  		Jeremy Rifkin

 
These groups argue that because DNA holds the keys to human life, it is immoral—and should be illegal—to own, buy, or sell the rights to it. Furthermore, . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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