Michael Crichton on Why Gene Patents Are Bad 367
BayaWeaver writes "Michael Crichton, author of The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park has made a strong case against gene patents in an op-ed for the New York Times. Striking an emotional chord, he begins with 'You, or someone you love, may die because of a gene patent that should never have been granted in the first place. Sound far-fetched? Unfortunately, it's only too real.' From there, he moves on to use logic, statistics, and his way with words to make his point. Arguing against the high costs of gene therapies thanks to related patents, he eventually offers hope that one day legislation will de-incentivize the hoarding of scientific knowledge. As he points out: 'When SARS was spreading across the globe, medical researchers hesitated to study it — because of patent concerns. There is no clearer indication that gene patents block innovation, inhibit research and put us all at risk.'"
"fact of nature" (Score:5, Informative)
from his book, "Next" (Score:4, Informative)
Why should we listen to this guy, you ask. (Score:5, Informative)
He attended Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts as an undergraduate, graduating summa cum laude in 1964. Crichton was also initiated into the honors organization Phi Beta Kappa. He went on to become the Henry Russell Shaw Travelling Fellow, 1964-65 and Visiting Lecturer in Anthropology at Cambridge University, England, 1965. He graduated at Harvard Medical School, gaining an M.D. in 1969 and did post-doctoral fellowship study at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California, in 1969-1970.
Re:All patents are bad (Score:4, Informative)
This does not hold true. Today when a drug goes off patent the maker of the drug continues to sell the drug along with the generics (at close to the same price). Even though the generics do not have the same quality control as the maker of the drug generics are used instead because the cost is slightly lower. The cost is the only thing that matters to some HMOs and insurance plans. (And yes, there is a difference in manufacturing and quality control).
There is no brand loyalty for drugs because of the outside influence exerted by the insurance companies and pharmacies. Did you ever wonder why there are laws that say pharmacies can substitute a generic drug for a brand one? The end cost most of the time is exactly the same, however, generics sell the generic brand to pharmacies for a lower price than the brand name. So, when a pharmacy substitutes a generic for a name brand they pocket the difference in price while they bill the insurance company nearly the same as the brand name. That's the outside influence. So why doesn't the brand name drug just lower the price to the pharmacies? They usually can't because their manufacturing costs are higher because they have the quality control issues that generics generally don't. This is not to say generics don't care about quality control, but there are large differences.
Some patents are needed, period. Gene patents are not because I believe you should not be able to patent nature. It's a prior art thing. Just wait, someday God is going to come down and sue for his patents back.
Re:Ah, the global warming guy (Score:2, Informative)
I don't pretend to know much about the issue, but I don't see how dissenting views and questions in science are a bad thing. How did Crichton's credibility (whatever that is) get "shot"? Were all or even most of Crichton's views on global warming proven wrong?
I love how people like to talk about controversial, yet widely accepted scientific truths as "religions". See, when a scientist who has tons of documentation and has spent his whole life working on the case that people are causing climate change gets pissed off because a fiction writer "disproves" it all
A fiction writer can't disprove science without doing or relying on science - if Crichton has a point, it's based on the work of other scientists who've spend their lives working on the same subject and have tons of documentation to back up their views. Real science can take rigorous examination and questioning - religion can't.
, putting the smack down on years of attempts to educate the public about the danger, it's because it's a "religion", not because someone is just shoveling a load of inaccurate crap.
If it's inaccurate crap, it should and will be disproven or shown to be unprovable, like the Intelligent Design nonsense. Attempting to shout down someone whose scientific views don't agree with yours is bad for science and has a proven track record of failure throughout history.
On the other hand, when an actual religion gets slapped down for trying to get a load of inaccurate crap taught in schools, it's because science is "biased" and "unfair".
I'm not even sure what you're talking about here - if you're referring to the Intelligent Design thing, obviously that's an attempt to introduce the concept of an unprovable and unverifiable Intelligent Designer into the science of evolution. If there are legitimate counter-claims to the global warming claims, they will be based on verifiable, repeatable research. Denying reality because you don't like it is not good science, no matter what side of the issue you currently find most persuasive.
Re:Ah, the global warming guy (Score:4, Informative)
You clearly did not read State of Fear. Without editorializing my opinion on global warming, what Crichton does is offer a case that global warming is not a slam-dunk scientific case as the media makes it out to be. He fashions what he admits is a fantasy tale involving conspiracy around this idea, but never... EVER.. does he state that global warming is complete fiction and environmental catastrophe is part of a conspiracy of maniacs.
He then states his opinion on global warming in the appendix, and provides references to support his beliefs. Some of it is compelling. The RealClimate people focus on one graph that he uses which utilizes an extrema of data points, and then justifies itself to complete bash the rest of his arguments. That certainly isn't scientific.
And so is bashing a man's opinions without reading his work.
Genetic inventions can be patented. (Score:3, Informative)
Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 1980 [wikipedia.org]
Re:All patents are bad (Score:3, Informative)
Well, drug R&D is a bit more expensive than cell phone engineering. It mostly is the result of having to pay doctors to run the clinical trials (if you have 10,000 subjects, every one of them has a doctor, and they ALL get paid). And there is a much higher risk of failure. If you make a new cell phone chances are that the new phone will work, even if it doesn't corner the market. Not so with drugs - there is a good chance a new drug won't work at all, and even if it does it isn't guaranteed to corner the market for long.
I'm not sure what you mean by the "initial medical treatment market", and the free "drugs" that doctors invented therein. Can you give a specific example? I'm not aware of many examples of non-profit-originated drugs on the market. Note - I define drug as a dosable substance shown to be safe and effective, not just some molecule that suppresses tumor growth in a test tube (bleach works really well for that). Usually when people talk about "drugs" developed for almost no cost they're talking about some molecule that has some activity in some assay - often with no thought to safety, bioavailability, etc. Commercial pharma companies spend alomst nothing (per molecule) developing such concept molecules - the costs come in when you try to solve all the other issues. If all you want is some chemical that has an effect in some assay any pharma company could have its robots find one in a few days. There is a whole lot more to curing disease than just switching off some enzyme...
Re:Ah, the global warming guy (Score:3, Informative)
- Peer review and scientific consensus are forms of superstitious mass group-think
- Or, if not, peer review and scientific consensus == new forms of hysterical politico/religious pogrom
- A non-practicing MD novelist == Newton and Einstein
- These thoughts are all +5 Insightful
May I please have some shoyu with my Refried Straw Men?
Re:I wish that he would keep his mouth shut (Score:4, Informative)
-l
"...environmentalism has killed 10-30 million" (Score:3, Informative)
http://info-pollution.com/ddtban.htm [info-pollution.com]
Re:I wish that he would keep his mouth shut (Score:5, Informative)
Two issues with this, and the rest of your post, actually.
One: Michael Chrichton is not exactly a lay person. He is a certified MD, and a medical scientist. He does not currently practice, but he IS a scientist, and more than capable of studying the data on his own and coming up with a trustworthy conclusion, or to make comments on what he perceives as misconduct in the scientific community.
Two: You are jumping to some pretty ridiculous conclusions about what I would have our society become. As I stated, consensus in the scientific community is bad, especially when not all the data is there. Again, Science must be independently verifiable. Using magic to travel to Mars is not independently verifiable. Nor are ANY of the other ludicrous statements you make. I clearly stated this in my post above. Apparently it's much more fun to troll by making baseless accusations than actually READING WHAT I WROTE.
Currently, the concept of "Solely Man-Made Global Warming" is not independently verifiable! The entire discussion smacks of politics, and that's what's got a bee in Mr. Chrichton's bonnet. This is NOT an outrageous request to make. We simply want All the data available, and have it put to a totally open, and independently verifiable test. Are you aware that Michael Mann, the scientist that came up with the famous "Hockey Stick" graph, has YET to release his data and methods for peer review? What kind of science is that? No review? Community consensus without discussion? THIS IS NOT SCIENCE, IT IS POLITICS. Clear and simple.
All I and Mr. Chrichton want is clean science. No consensus, no politics. Capice?
Re:I wish that he would keep his mouth shut (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=11 [realclimate.org]