Someone (Other Than You) May Own Your Genes
And they don’t mean the denim kind. This is the advent of a true Dystopia, and the apex of corporate colonization. If this is allowed to continue, and it will be, as long as corporations and using the model of corporate economics as the primary driving principle behind every aspect of our society, then we are truly headed for a very disturbing future.
The degree of control that life patents grant their owners is of growing concern to scientists, human rights and patient advocates and ethicists. More than 20 percent of human genes have already been patented, and most of those patents are owned by corporations.
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There are many other examples of life patents causing public concern. One of the most important examples involves patents on food crops and cloned animals. These patents have a growing potential to cede control of the world’s food supply to biotech patent holders.
Important questions must also be answered about who can legitimately “own” or control our personal genetic information. And no one has yet been able to address economic, social and legal questions raised by the patenting of genetic resources taken from developing countries.
This month, for example, Peruvian farmers protested against the biotech giant Syngenta , which genetically modified a common potato variety so that the potatoes are sterile unless a chemical is applied.
Read the New York Times article Here
