Patents on DNA and Medical Treatments

We've talked about this in class before, and its been in our readings... but it still intrigues and baffles me quite a bit. Yah, a lot of IP laws hurt a lot of innocent people-- copyright laws hurt start-up artists all the time while favoring the corporate monopolies with the lobbying power and money. But what about these patents on DNA and medical treatments hurting thousands of innocent people just searching for the best possible solution to their problem? Of course, something has to be done in both cases, but it baffles me that it is still an issue. Patents are great to some extent, but there are so many medications out there that cannot be issued to patients in need due to some patent restriction. I came across this article earlier today, about babies diagnosed with epilepsy who may not get the correct exams for diagnosis of a specific kind of epilepsy because of a patent held by Genetic Technologies. 

The tests can be performed at public hospitals, but must be sent to Genetic Technologies for diagnosis and then, if necessary, medication. But these tests must be sent to Scotland and take an average of 16 to 18 months to be reviewed. According to the article, this is too much time for the infants to go on with ineffective epilepsy medications. Also, only infants who have symptoms that are almost identical to those of Dravet Syndrome (the type of epilepsy in question) have test results sent over, but there are several variations that can also be tested by these exams, but never are. The article, and those at the public hospitals, claim that they should be able to conduct the exams in-house to help the patients who really do need it and shouldn't be hurt by a patent.

But anyway, this just brings us back to this same situation about patents and the extent to which they should be enforced and when there should be exceptions. Let's hope the next few years really do bring change and radical improvements to patents laws, as both candidates ardently supported throughout their candidacy. Both McCain and Obama specified that they would ensure rapid review of patents and in depth decisions for issuing them and not. Here's to hoping it does change. People's lives in danger when there ARE available solutions because of patents? I understand it's difficult to invalidate some and not others, but it seems ridiculous that this keeps happening so often.