Do You Have Property Rights Over Your DNA?
from the this-won't-end-well dept
Eriq Gardner has a great and very detailed article over at ABA Journal exploring questions about the legality of collecting someone's DNA and using it. Apparently, right now, there is a hodgepodge of state laws, with more on the way, and a lot of these issues are likely to end up in court. Realistically speaking, this is a privacy issue, but it's being framed by some as a "property rights" issue, specifically with some new legal proposals:Perhaps it�s not surprising then to see some of the toughest proposed legislation coming from the New England hotbed of genetics research, specifically in Massachusetts and Vermont, where some bold politicians and health policy think tanks introduced in January a Genetic Bill of Rights for citizens, proposing that individuals should have property rights over their own DNA.I'm actually a bit surprised that supporters of this type of law think that a property rights model makes sense, because it's then easy to counter with the point that DNA that you leave behind is effectively "discarded" property. That is, if you leave behind a cup you drank out of, does it make sense that you still retain a "property right" over the microscopic DNA you left on the cup?
Their legislative proposals would go even further than Alaska�s statute. They would not only mandate consent for the collection and use of DNA but also spell out that individuals have a right to privacy with respect to their genetic information. They would also prohibit entities like auto insurers and money lenders from misusing DNA info. The statute recognizes that DNA has �a fair market value� and carves out only limited exceptions for violating someone else�s DNA property rights: those working under judicial order, such as police investigators. Intentional violations of the statute would carry both prison time and civil fines.
The fears, of course, are not too difficult to imagine. There have been books and movies written about a world with genetic profiling. But does that really justify some of these laws? And, perhaps, the bigger fear might not be laws about what private parties can do, but what law enforcement is already doing -- such as using DNA analysis to implicate family members in certain crimes. And, as the article notes, even if such laws are put in place, does anyone really think it would stop surreptitious DNA collection and analysis?
To be honest, this is one story where I can definitely see and understand both sides, but I do worry when people seek to go too far with laws to protect what they think is really a privacy issue (especially by conveying property rights), where there may not be a real privacy issue at all.
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Filed Under: dna, privacy, property rights
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Circular logic
Isn't this circular logic? Without a law that makes it illegal to collect DNA without express approval, there'd be no need for the "collector" to be surreptitious. Also, who realistically thinks that *any* law completely stops anything? Discounting the hyperbole in public statements by politicians, they surely have to realize that any law is only going to limit an activity, not eliminate it.
I do worry when people seek to go too far with laws to protect what they think is really a privacy issue (especially by conveying property rights), where there may not be a real privacy issue at all.
Wait, are you saying that there isn't a privacy issue? Or just that they're taking the wrong approach by characterizing a privacy issue as a property issue?
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Mixed Feelings
However, I don't think DNA should be collected and used from humans without consent either (it gets done in incredibly sneaky and underhanded ways). A key example: CIA hosting fake vaccination drives to steal Pakistani DNA in the hunt for Bin Laden. Ends did not justify the means. Furthermore, an individual shouldn't find out that some of their genes got patented by a biotech firm they had never heard of, let alone gave permission to take DNA.
This is a hugely messy issue, with no easy answers. I highly recommend Crichton's book (and be sure to read the epilogue, the guy was a decade ahead of society on this one).
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Re: Mixed Feelings: @ "his last (while alive) novel"
While here: As to Crichton: I was a decade ahead of his novel by reading a little science fiction from decades ahead of me. You young people seem to think everything from your own youth is brand new in the world, completely lack historical perspective.
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Re: Re: Mixed Feelings: @ "his last (while alive) novel"
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Re: Re: Mixed Feelings: @ "his last (while alive) novel"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton
As to Crichton: I was a decade ahead of his novel by reading a little science fiction from decades ahead of me.
That would put your reading material back to 1976 or earlier. I'm curious who was writing about DNA issues back then.
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Re: Mixed Feelings
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Duh!
Possession is nine-tenths the law.
Does mommy and daddy have rights to your dna as well?
Doof!
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Privacy / property: just keep it safe from gov't and corporations!
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Re: Privacy / property: just keep it safe from gov't and corporations!
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Re: Privacy / property: just keep it safe from gov't and corporations!
ok, i'll bite
"Yet another case where you plant a POISON PILL."
No U
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The most severe penalty will be radiation treatment until that half of the child's DNA no longer recognizes as being based on that parent.
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Property rights vs. Privacy rights
So how does this complicate the property rights?
What about privacy rights instead of property rights? It might be a good thing to prevent the commercial spread of your DNA information in order to discriminate against you. See the movie Gattaca.
If we discriminate against people with "bad" genes, we are directing the course of evolution. This might have unforseeable and undesirable consequences.
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Then there's...
It's still not a good remedy. There'll be massive problems in trying to secure rights to actually market a gene therapy if anyone can block it by saying "/me want monies too". If I had the World Dictatorship for even a single day, I think that fixing the IP system would be in the top 3 on my ToDo, if not number 1. Innovation is the only thing keeping us from becoming just another species in the food chain so we gotta keep it strong.
But I can see where they're coming from in proposing this.
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Re: Then there's...
My view:
1. you should be able to keep your genetic information private and disclose some or all of it as you like.
2. genes should not be patentable.
3. you should NOT have property rights to your genes.
I'm not even sure why item 3 matters given items 1 and 2.
I strongly agree with you about fixing IP, innovation and food chain. :-)
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Re: Property rights vs. Privacy rights
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Re: Property rights vs. Privacy rights
And if we don't discriminate against people with "bad" genes we are directing the course of evolution. Every time you choose a mate to have a child with (monogamous or polygamous), you are making a decision that directs the course of evolution. In fact, unless we put every woman's name into a hat and let the men randomly choose the name, then have a child with them, we are directing the course of evolution.
I don't disagree with the rest of what you have to say, but I wanted to point out the short-sightedness of this comment.
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blood hell
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gedanken sind frei
A law that I can break by an act of thought is a very bad law.
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Re: gedanken sind frei
That's like being able to deduce Sony's PS3 signing key from a number of public keys because of their badly implemented random number generator function.
I saw the following in a comic strip soon after.
// Guaranteed to be random.
// Chosen by a fair roll of a dice cube.
function getRandomNumber() { return 4; }
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Property rights in tissue - unforeseen costs
One of the practical concerns cited by the court was chilling of medical research, by creating fear of unwittingly using "stolen" tissue. Which is interesting, because this argument applies equally well to the patent in the developed cell line (and patents in general) - fear of patent litigation stifling innovation and all that.
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Re: Property rights in tissue - unforeseen costs
Imagine if the HeLa cell line, taken without informed consent from Henrietta Lacks in 1951, was patented. Would all the benefits from widespread research on this line have occurred? Additionally, since HeLa has acted like a weed contaminating many cell lines, would patent considerations complicate all the research that might possibly have, HeLa contaminated, cell lines?
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The reality
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DNA can't be property.
Example: You go to your doctor for a strange lump on your back. The doctor performs a biopsy to determine if it is cancerous. The doctor could now use that tissue for research. The point where this would not be legal is if the doctor extracts tissue for no reason other than getting DNA for research. That borders on assault.
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Incentive
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Re: Incentive
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This will end up like all other IP laws out there. FUBAR.
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Patenting DNA
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Re: Patenting DNA
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Property vs Privacy
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Property rights
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DNA rights
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DNA
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