Now hit me if I ain't correct on this, but didn't "owning" folks, or any part thereof, go out with Lincoln and that thar Emancipation Proclamation? I guess them pharmaceutical industrial types, like at Myriad Genetics (et al!), still don't get it. Maybe they was thinkin' to themselves "heck, them is only some little genes what are smaller than a grain of sand, so no one will notice if we jump a claim on them ". Know what I mean, good folks? I think y'all do.
Now here's the problem: them genes what were patented are the ones that trigger some breast and ovarian cancers. Now these "Myriad Genetics" folks, for example, have them a little test for these genes what will tell the risk of them developing these forms a cancer. The test cost $3,000! Well, it turns out that the patent on that thar test includes, in legalese of course, a patent on them same little genes. So that means, if y'all don't want to pay no $3000 to Myriad Genetics, you is plum out of luck, cause no other drug company is allowed to make a test to touch that them genes, so says the U.S. patent office.
Now one of the big questions I have here is ... how did 20 percent of our genes get patented in the first place? Is this a serious case of inefficent patent office paper-pushin' rubber stampers ... or have some viagara-totin' suit-wearin' drug dealers been payin' off them rubber stampers to look the other way? I wonder....
All right I want y'all to think on this to boot: on the heels of a judge shootin' down them rogue patents, it turns out that, according to the New York Times, over on Wall Street "many biotechnology stocks fell on Tuesday as investors struggled to understand the impact of a ruling that threw out parts of two gene patents and called into question thousands more." It seems to me that them Wall Street investors ain't had absolutely no problem understandin' anything at all! They can do the math! It don't take a rocket scientist to know that twenty percent a somethin' is somethin', while zero percent a somethin' is nothin'! Now I wonder if them Wall Street investors knew this all along and that's why they invested in them drug-dealin' industrials in the first place, thinkin' they could jump a claim on us all.
I tell you what though, the real "bottom line" is that when big business trickery stands in the way of good folk being denied life saving medical testing ... well let's just say I hope the high courts ride them "drug dealers" hard and puts them up wet. And as for them rubber stampers at the patent office, well I guess someone oughtsta give them keys to the "short bus" to ride home on. And, to all a y'all Wall Street investors takin' a blood bath now cause a this here fiasco, well it serves y'all right fer thinkin' y''all could squat on any party a our bodies!
Man-o-man, it seems to me even the devil himself don't got anything on these pharmaceutical industry types! It's sad to say that, even fer a spell, "big business" can own a "pound of our flesh" without us even knowin' anything about it. I like to think it ought be a lot harder for them to own our souls, too .... but, uh, maybe we all oughta check with some "ambulance chasers" just to be sure.
All the best,
- Judd Jugmonger
PS. Here's the link to them articles for more info:
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100330/full/news.2010.160.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/business/31gene.html
PPS: Hey y'all, here's a good book y'all might want to take at look-see at:
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