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COMMENTS: Card Carrying Members
The American Civil Liberties Union had a busy news day. Besides its lawsuit against the Pentagon, CBS' Wyatt Andrews also saw the ACLU take on biotech. Firms such as Myriad Genetics in Utah are selling patented diagnostic tests for risk of diseases. Patients can pay to be screened for breast cancer or Alzheimer's Disease or cystic fibrosis, for example. Yet it is not the test that is patented but the underlying gene itself. "The ACLU is challenging the private ownership of body parts," was how Andrews explained it. "The courts and Congress are usually inclined to protect genuine inventions but in this case genes occur naturally in the body. If you cannot patent natural substances like water, the argument goes, how do you patent DNA?"
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