The corporate logo on your genes – your genes?

How’s this for de-privatizing your body – some biotech company could own your genes (yes, own) and you wouldn’t know it until a crisis emerges. I recently read Michael Crichton’s Next, where the main plot revolves about corporate ownership of genes and their right to “mine” them from your body. Good yarn, I thought, but come on, this is taking a flight of fancy into sci-fi. Last Sunday I watched CBS’s 60 Minutes, and one of the segments explored – you got it, corporate ownership of genes via patent protection. University medical school are prevented from studying those genes, testing labs are prohibited from searching for them in your body, and the owning entity will deal with any medical condition related to those same genes if they feel it’s profitable enough. While we fret about the possible creation of ‘death panels’ by a government run health system, the private sector is quietly inserting its imprimatur up our rectum.