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Friday, April 12, 2013

DNA PATENT RESEARCHERS CONCERNED: DO YOU OWN YOUR GENES? THOUGHTS AND SPECULATIONS

This is a blog about some other blogs that have appeared the previous week on this site, and about some books, and some dot-connecting. So here we go.
The late Charles Fort said something in his The Book of the Damned that I and other authors have cited, pondering its implications from the standpoint of ancient texts that suggest that humanity was perhaps the product of some genetic engineering experiment between “the gods” and some Earth-born hominid:
“I think we’re property.
“I should say we belong to something:
“That once upon a time, this earth was No-man’s Land, that other worlds explored and colonized here, and fought among themselves for possession, but that now it’s owned by something;
“That something owns this earth – all others warned off….
“I suspect that, after all, we’re useful – that among contesting claimants, adjustment has occurred, or that something now has a legal right to us, by force, or by having paid out analogues of beads for us to former, more primitive, owners of us – all others warned off – that this has been known, perhaps for ages, to certain ones upon this earth, a cult or order, members of which function like bellwethers to the rest of us, or as superior slaves or overseers, directing us in accordance with instructions received – from Somewhere else – in our mysterious usefulness.” (Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned [New York: Tarcher-Penguin, 2008] p. 163.)
Now let us add to this intriguing thought the issue I first raised in my book Genes, Giants, Monsters, and Men, namely, that the right of corporations to patent individual genome sequences that have been directly engineered or modified might eventuate in the possibility that all such sequences, when added together, might imply that the entire human genome was privately owned.  (See my Genes, Giants, Monsters, and Men [Port Townsend, Washington: Feral House, 2011], pp. 125-158.)
At the time, my concerns were a “distant” possibility, or so I thought. But now researchers at Cornell are raising the same concerns:
You Don’t “Own” Your Own Genes Researchers Raise Alarm about Loss of Individual “Genomic Liberty” Due to Gene Patents That May Impact the Era of Personalized Medicine
Note the study’s conclusion: when all the individually patented sequences are added up, the entire human genome is owned by some corporation:
“Their analysis concluded that almost all clinically relevant genes have already been patented, especially for short sequence patents, showing all human genes are patented many times over.”
Just for the record, I stand firmly in agreement with Dr. Mason’s statement on the issue of the individual human genome:
“‘I am extremely pro-patent, but I simply believe that people should not be able to patent a product of nature,’ Dr. Mason says. ‘Moreover, I believe that individuals have an innate right to their own genome, or to allow their doctor to look at that genome, just like the lungs or kidneys. Failure to resolve these ambiguities perpetuates a direct threat to genomic liberty, or the right to one’s own DNA.’”
That said, now let’s recall my blog for last Tuesday, April 9, 2013: “The DNA-ET Messages Meme is Back…on This Time It’s In Icarus… Can You Say Disclosure?” (Read more: THE JUNK DNA-ET MESSAGES MEME IS
There I indicated that some scientists are arguing that DNA not only may but actually does carry a “message” not “from here.” In my blog that day, I also referenced this article: Is An Alien Message Embedded In Our Genetic Code?. The crucial paragraph from this article for our purposes here is this:
“This interpretation leads them to a farfetched conclusion: that the genetic code, “appears that it was invented outside the solar system already several billions years ago.” This statement endorses the idea of panspermia, the hypothesis that Earth was seeded with interstellar life. It’s certainly a novel and bold approach to galaxy conquest if we imagine this was a deliberate Johnny Appleseed endeavor by super-beings.”
In yet another blog this previous week, I also argued that NASA appears to be in the process of collateralizing whatever resources exist in the solar system, for the purposes of mining them, and I raised the issue of the possibility of there being a “prior claim” on such resources. (See “Secret Space Program Anyone? NASA Wants to Move and Mine Asteroids”  SECRET SPACE PROGRAM ANYONE? NASA WANTS TO MOVE AND MINE ASTEROIDS ). In that article, I advanced the question of what would happen if, when moving an asteroid to mine it, we discovered there was a prior claim? I argued there that this possibility would inevitably have led to secret planning for “space dreadnoughts” to protect the commercial venture, and the shipping of asteroids to be mined (if this sounds like previous human history, you’re right. The pattern is clear, from the Roman Empire, to Byzantium, to Venice, to the Ottoman Turks, to France, Holland, and, obviously, Great Britain).
So what about a prior claim to DNA, as Charles Fort suggested at the turn of the last century? If the Icarus scientists are correct, such a DNA message would, in all principles of law, constitute a prior claim, and thus, the other implication raised by the Icarus “Wow! Signal” article is that US corporations may have all the wonderful bought-off opinions from the US Supremes (and yes, I do believe all justices and judges can be corrupted, none more so than those at the very top), but it won’t do them much good if the prior claimants suddenly show up, and thus one has another motivation for those oligarchs and technocrats of a breakaway civilization to make contingency plans for the possibility that “they” do show up, intent upon pressing those claims…            http://gizadeathstar.com/2013/04/dna-patent-researchers-concerned-do-you-own-your-genes-thoughts-and-speculations/

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