I was thinking about writing a really long post about this topic, but decided against it. There are so many problems with the line of reasoning the court showed here, but at the same time they are right in that property rights for donors of biological material will make research more difficult.
Paying people a living wage for their labour makes making huge profits more difficult too, but we still outlawed slavery and set fair pay standards. This is such a stupid line of reasoning. I really can't stand it when people put abstracts like the pace of development above human wellbeing and justice. What else is development for if not to make things better for everyone?
The California Supreme Court ruled that Moore had no property interest in his own cells, and therefore could not recover on a claim for conversion.
This is retarded. I fail to see how lack of property interest (and in this case it wasn't even that, it was ignorance as to the value of said property) somehow negates your right to the property in question. If I have a vase that I hate and keep in the closet it doesn't mean anyone can just waltz in and take the damned thing, it's still my property.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited October 2007
The California Supreme Court ruled that Moore had no property interest in his own cells, and therefore could not recover on a claim for conversion. They stated that his cells were not unique to him because everyone has T-cells in their body. However the court didn't seem to grasp that the reason the doctors wanted Moore's particular T-cells was because they were unique in that they produced lymphonids (I think that's what it's called) at a much greater rate than a normal person's would. They also allowed the patent on the cell line because the doctors had worked so hard to create the cell line, it didn't matter that the cells they were patented were "Naturally occurring" and hadn't TECHNICALLY been invented by them at all.
I want to know how they "created" the cell line. What was the process involved here. Did they simply keep replicating Moore's own T-cells or did they take another persons cells and modify them with something from Moore's T-Cells.
This is important in determining wether or not this decision was hypocritical. If you modify something existing enough to make it something else you can patent that new thing.
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(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
"Paying people a living wage for their labour makes making huge profits more difficult too, but we still outlawed slavery and set fair pay standards. This is such a stupid line of reasoning. I really can't stand it when people put abstracts like the pace of development above human wellbeing and justice. What else is development for if not to make things better for everyone?"
Hm, you kind of took what I said out of context there. I don't think anyone here would argue that with the way the system works today, what the researchers did was right. If the samples had originated from my body, I would be just as pissed that a couple of bastard doctors made money from it. What I was aiming for was the fact that giving property right for donors, and also for samples collected from places like rain forests to the people living there, might not be in the best interest of humanity as a whole. With the way the system works today, there might not be a better way of solving the problem with predatory companies looking for the next big thing, at least by giving property rights to the people closest to the originating source you make sure that the profits are spread to those more in need of them rather than just to the already rich stock-owners.
What I was aiming for was the fact that in the hypothetical ideal situation I was talking about, where research is performed with the aim of improving our knowledge and with the benefit of everyone as the target, giving property rights might actually be harmful to research, and as a consequence make things worse for everyone, except for the the people that can collect royalties on samples that the really have had no more input in creating other than being the source of a few cells or living on the land where it originated. Why should these people be able to make money on something that they have not created, when free access to the material could enable researchers to come up with many useful things from them if they were freely available? But like I said, this is a hypothetical situation.... the way things work today is that instead of making the samples freely available they are locked up in the IP-banks of big companies and the profits that are inevitable with our present system end up in the pockets of people who have even less right to them.
Indeed. I have a hard time not seeing this as a major issue. At the very least, they performed unnecesary procedures, claiming it was for his health, when it was for their financial benefits. You can't punish them for this in particular, and then not take away their incentive to do so. Hey, you can still make millions, but we'll say you were wrong? Pointless.
Hell, that genetic material was his, just as his hand, and if they want to own it they can buy it from him. Not doing so can cause all kinds of marketplace problems.
You can punish them for lying to the patient. That's bad and we don't want that. But seriously, fuck off on everything else - unless you identified the sequences yourself, extracted the cells and developed some innovative treatments based on it I really fail to see how the patient has all that much right to profits from the research.
If I had my way with legislation, I'd ban anyone from being able to donate body parts for % profit based contracts, but still allow one-off incentive payments.
The problem with this is that their research and its end conclusiong NEVER WOULD HAVE HAPPENED without his cells at the start of it. Couple with the fact that they continued to take his cells as they needed to help culture and develop their cell line, and it makes things a bit murkier.
Which is why I said I support incentive payment schemes for the collection. I do not support assigning property rights to your own genetic material, because it's about as different from inventing and patenting a product as it's possible to be.
It would seem that the cells had no effective value to Moore until they were removed, he could produce them at will and he certainly had no ability to convert them into a saleable medicine. As such to him a few cells has no value.
The problem with this isnt so much the "People having DNA stolen by companies" side of things, but the problem that occurs when companies patent DNA rather than processes done on DNA. Moores cells had unique properties which the company clearly exploited in unique ways to produce medicine, the method of exploitation belonged to the company and should be patented, the DNA sequence itself was not created by the company (or even by Moore for than matter) and should not be patented. Patenting DNA is like patenting sugar, or green, or copper, its what you do with those materials that produces a patentable product, patenting the materials will just hinder development.
The only patentable DNA sequence should be a truely artificial one.
What I was aiming for was the fact that in the hypothetical ideal situation I was talking about, where research is performed with the aim of improving our knowledge and with the benefit of everyone as the target, giving property rights might actually be harmful to research, and as a consequence make things worse for everyone, except for the the people that can collect royalties on samples that the really have had no more input in creating other than being the source of a few cells or living on the land where it originated.
There are plenty of such situations. One could argue it would also benefit society to redistribute the wealth of dead people, rather than give it to the inheritants that did nothing to deserve it, but we don't do that either. It's just society's call where the line between Good Of The Many and Good Of The One lies. Push too much into the former extreme and the inherent corruption negates its purpose, push into the latter and you're effectively killing the much-lauded innovation through overprotection that makes it too expensive and too risky to persue it.
What I was aiming for was the fact that in the hypothetical ideal situation I was talking about, where research is performed with the aim of improving our knowledge and with the benefit of everyone as the target, giving property rights might actually be harmful to research, and as a consequence make things worse for everyone, except for the the people that can collect royalties on samples that the really have had no more input in creating other than being the source of a few cells or living on the land where it originated.
There are plenty of such situations. One could argue it would also benefit society to redistribute the wealth of dead people, rather than give it to the inheritants that did nothing to deserve it, but we don't do that either. It's just society's call where the line between Good Of The Many and Good Of The One lies. Push too much into the former extreme and the inherent corruption negates its purpose, push into the latter and you're effectively killing the much-lauded innovation through overprotection that makes it too expensive and too risky to persue it.
Do you have any idea how much money is involved in this stuff though? You could support dozens and dozens of donors by giving them a few grand a year for life and never even impact the profit margin. Seriously, not screwing a few genetic freaks out of their fair share is hardly going to halt scientific advance in its tracks.
Well my problem with the whole thing is they never informed the patient or asked him to take part in their study. They simply kept saying they needed his cells to cure him, sounds really fucking dishonest. I didn't see anything that said when he was cured and when the stopped harvesting him (perhaps I missed it)? I mean shouldn't that be emotional suffering? And what about his flight expenses to go from seattle to their lab for his "treatments"?
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I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
It would seem that the cells had no effective value to Moore until they were removed, he could produce them at will and he certainly had no ability to convert them into a saleable medicine. As such to him a few cells has no value.
The problem with this isnt so much the "People having DNA stolen by companies" side of things, but the problem that occurs when companies patent DNA rather than processes done on DNA. Moores cells had unique properties which the company clearly exploited in unique ways to produce medicine, the method of exploitation belonged to the company and should be patented, the DNA sequence itself was not created by the company (or even by Moore for than matter) and should not be patented. Patenting DNA is like patenting sugar, or green, or copper, its what you do with those materials that produces a patentable product, patenting the materials will just hinder development.
The only patentable DNA sequence should be a truely artificial one.
The problem is taking DNA as well as being able to patent it.
Your statement about "effective value" has no relevance...if I own a post-it note with a valuable idea on it, but I don't know that it has value, it's still my post-it note and the ink and ideas written on it are still mine. If it's sitting on my desk at home and some computer repair guy comes in and sees the post-it and takes it, understands it better than me then turns it into a valuable company, am I not entitled to a share in the company or profits thereof?
Establishing the proof of ownership of the post-it in this hypothetical case would be difficult, but the ideas are very similar. I own my body and if I submit to a medical procedure I have the right to informed consent. In this case the doctor would have the obligation to inform him that he wanted to take some cells for research purposes. It's very possible that the patient would agree to these cells being taken for no compensation, but we can't hypothesize that he wouldn't demand some compensation for it, either. Given the proven lack of informed consent, some compensation is warranted.
Do you have any idea how much money is involved in this stuff though? You could support dozens and dozens of donors by giving them a few grand a year for life and never even impact the profit margin. Seriously, not screwing a few genetic freaks out of their fair share is hardly going to halt scientific advance in its tracks.
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Paying people a living wage for their labour makes making huge profits more difficult too, but we still outlawed slavery and set fair pay standards. This is such a stupid line of reasoning. I really can't stand it when people put abstracts like the pace of development above human wellbeing and justice. What else is development for if not to make things better for everyone?
I want to know how they "created" the cell line. What was the process involved here. Did they simply keep replicating Moore's own T-cells or did they take another persons cells and modify them with something from Moore's T-Cells.
This is important in determining wether or not this decision was hypocritical. If you modify something existing enough to make it something else you can patent that new thing.
Hm, you kind of took what I said out of context there. I don't think anyone here would argue that with the way the system works today, what the researchers did was right. If the samples had originated from my body, I would be just as pissed that a couple of bastard doctors made money from it. What I was aiming for was the fact that giving property right for donors, and also for samples collected from places like rain forests to the people living there, might not be in the best interest of humanity as a whole. With the way the system works today, there might not be a better way of solving the problem with predatory companies looking for the next big thing, at least by giving property rights to the people closest to the originating source you make sure that the profits are spread to those more in need of them rather than just to the already rich stock-owners.
What I was aiming for was the fact that in the hypothetical ideal situation I was talking about, where research is performed with the aim of improving our knowledge and with the benefit of everyone as the target, giving property rights might actually be harmful to research, and as a consequence make things worse for everyone, except for the the people that can collect royalties on samples that the really have had no more input in creating other than being the source of a few cells or living on the land where it originated. Why should these people be able to make money on something that they have not created, when free access to the material could enable researchers to come up with many useful things from them if they were freely available? But like I said, this is a hypothetical situation.... the way things work today is that instead of making the samples freely available they are locked up in the IP-banks of big companies and the profits that are inevitable with our present system end up in the pockets of people who have even less right to them.
The SIAA will bust that guy's nuts.
The problem with this isnt so much the "People having DNA stolen by companies" side of things, but the problem that occurs when companies patent DNA rather than processes done on DNA. Moores cells had unique properties which the company clearly exploited in unique ways to produce medicine, the method of exploitation belonged to the company and should be patented, the DNA sequence itself was not created by the company (or even by Moore for than matter) and should not be patented. Patenting DNA is like patenting sugar, or green, or copper, its what you do with those materials that produces a patentable product, patenting the materials will just hinder development.
The only patentable DNA sequence should be a truely artificial one.
Do you have any idea how much money is involved in this stuff though? You could support dozens and dozens of donors by giving them a few grand a year for life and never even impact the profit margin. Seriously, not screwing a few genetic freaks out of their fair share is hardly going to halt scientific advance in its tracks.
pleasepaypreacher.net
The problem is taking DNA as well as being able to patent it.
Your statement about "effective value" has no relevance...if I own a post-it note with a valuable idea on it, but I don't know that it has value, it's still my post-it note and the ink and ideas written on it are still mine. If it's sitting on my desk at home and some computer repair guy comes in and sees the post-it and takes it, understands it better than me then turns it into a valuable company, am I not entitled to a share in the company or profits thereof?
Establishing the proof of ownership of the post-it in this hypothetical case would be difficult, but the ideas are very similar. I own my body and if I submit to a medical procedure I have the right to informed consent. In this case the doctor would have the obligation to inform him that he wanted to take some cells for research purposes. It's very possible that the patient would agree to these cells being taken for no compensation, but we can't hypothesize that he wouldn't demand some compensation for it, either. Given the proven lack of informed consent, some compensation is warranted.