Patently absurd

Looking at their Web site, it doesn’t appear Genetic Technologies Ltd. has any bearing on human life. The home page shows images of sheep and cattle, a link to a DNA test for your dog and, almost incidentally, a woman staring at a plump baby—the human element of the company accused by Australian doctors of preventing public testing for Dravet syndrome, a severe form of early onset epilepsy. The test involves checking the SCN1A gene, but Genetic Technologies holds the Australian patent licence for the gene and hasn’t been willing to share.

Dr. Deepak Gill of Westmead Children’s Hospital’s neurology department says he’d be helping far more children if he could do in-house testing, but hospital labs are wary of conducting the tests lest Genetic Technologies, who have already threatened legal action against hospitals conducting genetic tests for breast cancer, try to squeeze their paws around another throat. Instead, samples are sent to Scotland, at great expense.

“The question is,” pondered Genetic Technologies co-founder Mervyn Jacobson, “are public hospitals allowed to break the law and breach patents?” That’s a question Mervyn might soon have answered for him as the government has announced an investigation into the impact of genetic patents on health care.

by SCOTT SAXON