MICROBIO 160 : Council for Responsible Genetics Email.doc

• School: UMASS-Amherst
• Department: Microbiology
• Course: MICROBIO 160
• Professor: Mitchell Walkowicz

Document Summary

After reading your article, dna patents create monopolies on living. Organisms , i completely agreed on what was being said about patented life forms being detrimental and unnecessary to the medical field. A few points i agreed with included the fact that by patenting organs, cells, genes, and proteins, products would become more expensive and less accessible to those truly in need of them. While the biotech industry claims that patents are necessary for technologies to be developed, i believe that this is a fallacy. Over the past hundreds of years, scientists and researchers have shown that they have done a well enough job discovering and creating medical products for patients that patents are not needed to get the job done. Yes, by patenting products the research may move quicker and cure more diseases and disorders, but i do not think the patenting of human parts is necessary to do so.