I DID mention she's crazy, right?

but sweet. Very, very sweet. Her face is like sunshine and she smells of pine needles!

It comes from her unsapped and pure precious bodily fluids!

The link was correlative, not causative. It should be noted that the mouth is just the top end of the alimentary canal. Mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine: all should be colonized with good bacteria. It is more likely that the set of health conditions that cause an overabundance of bad bacteria in the mouth (say, for example, diet and overall pH of the body) also affect the heart. Fixing the teeth doesn't fix the heart.

Ahh, I misunderstood the reports then. Either that or the reports were hyping up the link. This was something I saw a while back on the BBC News site.

The levels of dental problems in populations with and without fluoridated water, however, is something I have looked at in some detail. Likewise the evidence for and against it being potentially dangerous in terms of fluoride poisoning. Though I can't recall all the details (it's about 4 years ago), I recall my conclusions. I am absolutely in favour of fluoride being added to the water supply.

So Dana wants to put fluoride in everyone's water. Now isn't that just how your typical commie likes to act?

Attachment 42902

OK... here's a next generation scenario for you:

A baby is born with a lethal genetic disease.
A private US company has identified the gene, synthesized the normal gene,
and owns an FDA-approved method for gene-therapy treatment in humans.

The child's parents sign a licensing agreement and pay the company's fees.
Their child is treated, grows to adult hood, and has children who inherit the man-made (normal) gene.

Question: Do these children and all their subsequent offspring have to
abide by the licensing agreement and pay the company's fees ?

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.
.
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Our current US Supreme Court seems to think so ...
.

NY Times
Published: May 13, 2013
Soybeans and the Spirit of Invention
<snip>Farmers who buy Monsanto’s Roundup Ready seeds have to sign
a license agreement that prohibits them from saving seeds from the crop for replanting.
<snip>
Mr. Bowman bought Roundup Ready seeds for his main crop, and accepted Monsanto’s conditions.
But for his later crop, he sidestepped Monsanto by planting the cheaper seeds from a grain elevator.

The American Soybean Association called his practice “unorthodox.”
In a unanimous ruling on Monday, the Supreme Court ruled correctly for Monsanto.
If Mr. Bowman were given the right to make copies of the seeds,
Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court, “a patent would plummet in value
after the first sale of the first item containing the invention.”

"Question: Do these children and all their subsequent offspring have to abide by the licensing agreement and pay the company's fees ?"

I say 'no'.

The parents (Joe and Maddy) are the contractees.

The child (John) is the recipient of services (but is NOT a contractee).

John's kids are the benefiters from services (but NOT contractees).

Seems to me: to obligate children (and unborns) to a contract each had no hand in crafting (and had no competency to agree to) is a kind of slavery.

Besides: people are people* and seeds are seeds... :neutral:









*and Soylent Green

That analogy of the kids isn't really the same as the soybean one.

The company made a contract with the parents, so the parents need to keep paying according to the terms of the contract. You can't make a contract with people who aren't born yet, or with babies, so the kid with the man made genes doesn't have to pay, and the kids descended from that kid also don't have to pay. It's the parents/grandparents who have to pay, and when they die, perhaps the company can settle up with the estate, but it ends there.

I'm not really focusing on the "human" scenario above, it's was just to provide
a different framework for thinking about the decisions the current USSC is making.
Yes, analogies are never good devises in a debate.
And it's too easy to say human situations are different.

But, corporations are now people (:eyebrow:), and precedents play such important roles in law.

This whole business of patenting genes started in disease-resistant corn and wheat seeds,
and so control over the new gene technology was placed under control of the US Dept of Agriculture.
This was the precedent.

The grain-company in this Monsanto-decision is selling (mixtures of)
seeds with no preceding contract with Monsanto.
Their customers have no knowledge of the contamination with the patented seeds,
but these customers are now vulnerable to law suits from Monsanto
if they plant all the mixture and Monsanto finds the RoundUp gene in their crop.


IMO, patenting genes needs to be limited to the actual (physical)
substance or material produced by a patenting company,
and it's subsequent reproduction (inheritance) ignored, or simply
factored into the value of the initial batch of the product.
... sort of like bananas going bad on the grocery shelf.

Hmmm...

That sounds like my arguments regarding the children of undocumented (aka illegal) immigrants
;)

Contracts are irrelevant here. You don't have a contract with A. You make a part on a 3-D printer and sell it to B. You have no relationship to A. And yet you have still violated A's patent.

Same applies to the kids. If the parent's genes are fixed by A's patent, then the kids also owe a royalty payment to A.

Even worse. What happens when cells multiply from your 'fixed' cell. Must you pay A royalties for those newly spawn cells? Yes, according to basic principles of patent law. Those cells contain the intellectual property of A.

Of course, the contract could be written to extend patent rights to your spawned cells and offspring. So now we need a lawyer to negotiate medical treatment.

Or Congress could address this problem by innovating. By establishing new laws to address these new forms of intellectual property. That is what the Constitution created Congress for. Good luck now that so many extremists in Congress want no such protection in the name of no regulations, no government *interfence*, and "we want America to fail".

Without legal changes, human offspring containing the intellectual property of A (repaired genetic mutation) owes royalty payments to A. Any one using that intellectual property (irregardless of any contract) owes A a royalty for using A's intellectual property.

Finally, a major difference between patenting the process by which a gene is fixed verses the actual corrected gene. What exactly is the property that A owns?

"kids also owe a royalty payment"
 

It would be interesting to watch the company try to reclaim its property from the kid or grand kid who refuses to pay.

This, at the human level, is not so theoretical...


CNN News
Bill Mears, CNN Supreme Court Producer
April 17, 2013

Justices at odds over patents for human genes
But again, IMO, products reproduced one generation to the next should not carry patent protection.
Seed corn and wheat generally were patented as disease-resistant because
their resistance was multi-gene based upon 1st generation matings of different straits,
and the trait could not be carried into subsequent seed-crops.

I don't think so. The parents paid for the gene, so the kids are paid for. By the time the kids are ready to reproduce, the patent will probably have expired (20 year term from the date of file) so the grandchildren will be in the public domain. Besides, even if the patent hadn't expired yet by the time the grandkids came along, the company would have to get samples of the grandkids' DNA to prove that they contain their gene. Even if they comb through their trash, it's going to be difficult to prove where that DNA sample came from. The fifth amendment means the kids don't have to give up samples of their DNA against their will.

Besides, if you are the grandkid, and your body contains some proprietery gene that you never consented to, then how can you be expected to pay for it?

"(there’s )a major difference between patenting the process by which a gene is fixed verses the actual corrected gene."

Wholly appropriate to patent the process, but not the gene corrected by the process.

And if the process is the protected (intellectual) property, then the kid and grand kids can't be held obligated to pay squat as none uses the process for profit (each benefited from the process, a benefit paid for by the parents...not very different from the benefit I draw from my car, an object chockablock full of proprietary machines and processes...I pay no royalties cause I draw no direct profit from using someone else's intellectual property, or using the physical expression of that intellectual property).

#

"if you are the grandkid, and your body contains some proprietary gene that you never consented to, then how can you be expected to pay for it?"

Indeed!

Let's say the (corrected) gene itself is rendered a property: at what point does patent law trump self-possession?

And: there's a whole whack of issues regarding 'consent' and 'intent' as well.

I think, even with the current antiquated state of patent/copyright law (versus contract law) it's nowhere as cut and dried as you paint it, tw.


And -- again -- it would be interesting to see the company try to reclaim its property from the kid or grand kids who refuse to pay the royalty.