Stem Cell Patents Attacked Again

Stem Cell Patents Attacked Again

Two consumer advocacy groups in California have petitioned the US Patent and Trademark Office to revoke the stem cell patents held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. According to an article in the San Jose Mercury News, the two groups believe the patents are driving researchers to other countries and may hurt the CIRM. Another article, from the Contra Costa Times and reprinted in the Kansas City Star, quoted one researcher as saying that the patents are impeding research. She said that she can get a license without difficulty but expects problems with any attempts to work with a biotech company to develop a treatment. The WARF is sticking to its claim that the patents do not interfere with research and in fact supports it (licensing fees from use of the patents are rolled back in to research dollars). The Mercury News articles has an assertion from one person that the patents should not have been granted in the first place because the same techniques had been used previously by others; a story about the issue on Science Now quotes Harvard researcher Doug Melton as saying that the WARF license are "onerous, restrictive, and uncooperative.”

One of the issues that’s coming up is if a technique can be considered obvious and therefore unpatentable if it works in one species of animal but not another. Does the ability to clone a dog mean that cloning a human is now considered “prior art”? This is a pretty important issue for biotechnology, and I’ll be unsurprised if it winds up in court. There are some fundamental research issues at stake here.

Santorum Bill News

Santorum Bill News

Senator Rick Santorum faced another setback in his tough re-election campaign yesterday when the US House failed to pass his alternative stem cell research bill by enough votes. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the House will reconsider again today and try for a simple majority instead of a 2/3 vote. The bill, known as the Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act, “Amends the Public Health Service Act to require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to develop techniques for the isolation, derivation, production, or testing of stem cells that are capable of producing all or almost all of the cell types of the developing body and may result in improved understanding of treatments for diseases and other adverse health conditions, but are not derived from a human embryo.” There seems to be a general feeling that the bill does not really do anything scientifically—everything it calls for is already legal—and is more of a political tool than anything else.

Senate Bill Update

Senate Bill Update

As you probably know by now, the Senate bill lifting the restrictions on embryonic funding passed yesterday by a vote of 63-37—a few votes shy of the two-thirds necessary to override the veto. Stories and opinions are abundant; a good one is on the website for the Chicago Tribune. 19 Republicans, 43 Democrats, and 1 Independent voted for the bill. The Independent was Sen. Jeffords of Vermont. The article also gives a breakdown of who voted for and who voted against; the sole Democratic No was from Sen. Nelson of Nebraska. Every Senator voted. Mostly they seem to have voted as expected: Yes from both Senators (including some all Republican and some mixed states) from California, Illinois, Maryland, North Dakota, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Indiana, Delaware, Mississippi, Connecticut, West Virginia, Hawaii, New York, Vermont, Washington, Arkansas, Michigan, Tennessee, Rhode Island, Maine, New Jersey, Utah, Alaska, and Oregon. No votes came from both Republican Senators from Nebraska (1 Democrat, 1 Republican), Missouri, Ohio, Idaho, Oklahoma, Alabama, Kentucky, Wyoming, Georgia, South Carolina, and Kansas. Senators from Montana, New Mexico, Iowa, Minnesota, Louisiana, Florida, Colorado, Nevada, and South Dakota split along party lines. Republican Senators split in North Carolina, New Hampshire, Texas, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

I think the Mississippi, Arkansas, Utah, North Dakota, and Indiana yes’s are important, since those are generally conservative states. When you have Trent Lott and Ted Kennedy agreeing on something, pay attention.

Bush has, as promised, vetoed the bill already today. The first veto of his presidency. There’s an AP story in the LA Times if you want to read that. CNN reports 2,780 coalition force deaths so far in Iraq; the Houston Chronicle reports that according to the UN, there have been 14,338 violent civilian deaths in the first six months of this year, with deaths averaging 100 per day.