News, 15 March 2000
President Clinton and Mr Tony Blair, the British prime minister, want
the findings of the human genome project to be made freely available.
The Celera company's project is said to be overtaking government- and
charity-backed research. Celera shows its results to its drug company
sponsors, which may patent them, before publishing the material. Talks
between Celera and the US National Institutes of Health have broken
down. Church leaders fear that patenting the results of such work could
undermine the sanctity of life. The US patent office has issued about
400 patents on human genes and genome companies have filed for tens of
thousands more. The British science-minister has pointed out that
inventions, which may be patented, differ from discoveries, which may
not. [The Times website and the Daily Mail, 15 March, 2000, Pro-Life
E-News, 14 March, 2000]
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