Gene Patents and Justice: Better Late than Never

With the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on gene patents, I was reminded of work I did in the first year of my doctoral program. I examined gene patents using Robert Nozick’s understanding of property.  In full disclosure let me be clear that I have always been opposed to gene patents because I do not believe they qualify for patents because there is no novelty. The processes and technology used to isolate and sequence DNA, sure, but the actual sequence itself, I don’t think so.

But I digress. In terms of using a justice theorist to examine a contemporary issue, I chose to use Nozick and gene patents because I thought there was an interesting connection. The central question of justice in that kind of perspective is the ownership of genes. Assuming that genes were previously unowned, the question shifts to whether society is worse off as a result of this ownership. While it is possible to answer no, because the patent on the BRCA1 and 2 alleles allowed for tests to be develop to determine whether individuals had these particular variants, I would argue that ultimately the answer has to be that society is worse off through the ownership of genes. It may allow a company to pursue research, but it makes it much more difficult for others to pursue similar work. Anyone wanting to do anything in terms of the study of those sequences had to pay for the rights to do so, slowing research and increasing costs to consumers. In fact, a rival company has stated they can now offer BRCA 1 and 2 tests at a third of the cost.

The other argument that can be made is that genes were not previously unowned. It doesn’t really make sense to think of individual ownership of genes, but rather I’d argue that our species as a whole owns our genetic legacy and thus the acquisition of gene patents by biotech companies was never just in the first place.

Now ultimately, this ruling is a mixed bag. The patents specifically involved in the case were set to expire in 2016 anyway and the company’s stock shot up because the Supreme Court is still allowing for patents on cDNA (an issue that would take another post to really explore). It should help lower costs for people who want genetic tests, and make it easier for researchers to share work. The downside is that some believe it could present precedent regarding naturally occurring nonhuman products (derived from bacteria, plants, etc.). The actual ruling seems to speak directly to human genes, but I guess time will tell.

And it would also take a whole post (or more) to get into the added opinion of Justice Scalia at the end of the ruling where he writes “I join the judgment of the Court, and all of its opinion except Part I–A and some portions of the rest of the opinion going into fine details of molecular biology. I am unable to affirm those details on my own knowledge or even my own belief. It suffices for me to affirm, having studied the opinions below and the expert briefs presented here, that the portion of DNA isolated from its natural state sought to be patented is identical to that portion of the DNA in its natural state; and that complementary DNA (cDNA) is a synthetic creation not normally present in nature.” http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-398_1b7d.pdf

Let’s just say that even though I am fairly happy with the ruling, that scientific literacy would have enabled an even better ruling.

The Three Great Tragedies

Have you ever wondered what could some of the great tragedies in life be? As I considered the question, the following three tragedies topped my list. Without any hint of doubt, most of us would agree that the loss of someone dear to us could be the greatest of all tragedies in life. The reason for that is obvious: the feeling of loss of a dear one is more often than not irreparable, and the dear one, irreplaceable. The only thing that might survive is the memory of that person. The closer the person is to us, the greater the memories, and as a result, the greater the amount of pain and grief caused by the loss. I have experienced a few deaths in my extended family and I know what death could bring upon the lives of the surviving family members. One of my uncles and his family were crushed by my cousin’s unexpected death at quite a young age. Similarly, the death of my grandmother had literally led to the death of my grandfather – He just didn’t want to live after he lost his wife, and he fasted to death. These kinds of experiences are not unique to me; either you or people from your life might have been terribly affected by the death of their dear ones. The confusion, shock, and emptiness of the loss conglomerate and present a bitter pill of reality to swallow; and such pill, many people reckon, to be so bitter that they would rather count their own death to be less bitter, just like my grandpa did.

 Closely following the tragedy caused by death is the tragedy caused by loneliness, which in a way seems like the foretaste of death. In fact, recently, a report on social isolation and its impacts on mortality in the TIME magazine makes it clear that social isolation, which is closely related to the feeling of loneliness, leads to early deaths. There are quite a few studies on loneliness and how the “progress” that we boast of has indeed led us to loneliness and isolation. Instead of having more time on our hands to spend with our near and dear ones, and to pursue the hobbies that we like, our lives have become cogs in the great money-making-machine. Some of us are in the illusion that we are connected more than ever through social media such as Facebook, Twitter, etc., but the fact of the matter is that we are so superficially connected that our deeper longing for love and communion are far from being met. The Atlantic has published a thought provoking article, entitled: “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?”, which speaks to that fact. The article points out that “new research suggests that we have never been lonelier (or more narcissistic) – and that this loneliness is making us mentally and physically ill.”

 In addition to the two tragedies that I have mentioned, another grave tragedy of life, in my opinion, is the loss of the ability to feel – be it with someone, or for someone. Being able to feel with someone is nothing but having compassion. Marcus Borg in his Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, talking about the importance of compassion in the life and work of Jesus, parses the word and maintains that compassion “means feeling the feelings of somebody in a visceral way, at a level somewhere below the level of the head.” He adds that compassion is commonly associated with feeling the suffering of somebody else and being moved by that suffering to do something. That means this ability of being able to feel the joys or sorrows of others is what enables us to move beyond ourselves and consider the good of others. Further, Borg drives home the point that “to be compassionate” is what is meant by the New Testament command “to love.” Love and compassion, therefore, seem to serve as antidote to the narcissistic drives that we are forced to foster by the media and the great money-making-machine. Dalai Lama said it well: “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.” Drawing on the words of the Dalai Lama, it seems to me that the day we cease to be compassionate and to love, we cease to exist as humanity, and that, is indeed a great tragedy. 

On the real cost of food, or, why your carrots really are worth (at least) $2.50

(A brief contextual note: This blog post was originally written for and published on “Applying Ethics,” a blog that follows my work as an ethicist, academic, activist working outside of academia. Right now I am working for an organic farm that runs a community supported agriculture program or CSA, education programs, and sells at farmers’ markets. I repost here by request of my colleagues.)

I am now 7 months into working the farmers’ markets. My duties on the farm have expanded to included running some of the education programs which means I am now tending 5 gardens and numerous children who come to learn on the farm. That work combined with doing 3 markets a week these days has made me even more sensitive to a phrase that is kicked around the farm quite a bit: the real cost of food.

Rather than expounding on the phrase, allow me to rant, I mean contextualize it:

I worked a particularly long and difficult market today. I spent part of my shift, between restocking vegetables and explaining the concept of a CSA to people, pondering why some of the customers were getting on my nerves a bit. (Before you get concerned–I am pretty good at what Hoschild called “emotional labor.” That is, selling not just the product but the sunny disposition that creates the appropriate atmosphere–even and especially when there is a mis-match between said atmosphere and how you actually feel. I strive to make sure all customers have a great farmers’ market experience.)

Here is what I concluded: I was particularly irked because they were displaying the behavior and attitude that most of us are guilty of at one point or another. They wanted deals on the vegetables or were upset, in whatever way they chose to express it, because they thought the produce was “too expensive.”

I get tight budgets. I can even extrapolate and understand plentiful budgets but wanting to make your money stretch. I recognize that, for some people, getting a bargain is a sport.

What I would venture to guess we all forget (some with more or less frequency) is that bargains come at a price.

So, if I was teaching a class on food justice and talking about the real cost of food and one of my students brought up how they failed to get the farmer to cut them a deal on their carrots, this is what I would tell them:

I hear that you wanted the farmer to sell you the carrots for $2 instead of the $2.50 that was listed. Here is why I find it kind of insulting, albeit unintentionally so, when people feel like they shouldn’t have to pay that 50 cents:

Today was a market day. When my alarm went off at 4:45 am (that is right, that is a 4 in the hour slot) I woke up and removed my wrist braces. Wrist braces I now wear every night to minimize the injury caused by months of heavy lifting of boxes and vegetables, tents, and tables and repetitive motion. Wrist braces I wear because of the hard work I do to make sure you get your carrots.

I left the house well before the sun came up even before the rooster crowed–literally.

In order to get the produce to you, my colleague and I moved and loaded over 100 boxes and crates of vegetable. Your carrots were in one of those boxes.

We spent well over an hour setting up our stall so you had access to your carrots.

I was on my feet in perpetual motion for the entirety of the market. For the two hours before you got up when the market was open. For the 5 hours and 45 minutes after you left the market when you went to brunch, watched the game, took a nap or a hike.

I spent another hour or more packing up the carrots that weren’t quite the right ones for you and all of the other vegetables no one wanted. Along with those same tables and tents, I lifted those boxes of vegetables back into the truck. Lifting them from ground level to shoulder height, and repeating.

Back at the farm I reversed the process from the morning. Realizing only when I sat down to do paperwork (a necessary evil) that I had been working so hard to make sure you got your carrots that I didn’t have time to fill my water bottle or eat during the market.

When I got home after my 10 hour shift, I massaged my aching wrists, stretched my aching legs, and tried to refuel with some of the leftover vegetables that were not good enough to sell. All this knowing I would be getting up the next morning to do it all again.

Is all of that worth 50 cents?

The real kicker for me is that I am just the last person to put the work in for you to get your carrots. The work began around two to three months ago (longer when you talk about field prep and planning) when a farmer carefully planted each of the seeds that would grow to become your carrots. It continued during those months as multiple people tended the seedlings, put them in the ground, weeded by hand to make sure they got the sunlight and nutrients they needed to grow, harvested by hand, washed by hand, and packed up those carrots by hand.

With the amount of labor alone that went into that bundle of carrots $2.50 is a steal! A steal, I tell you!

So, no, I don’t blame farmers who price their produce in such a way as to make sure they cover the full cost of their produce. I don’t blame them for not wanting to drop the price because we feel like we deserve a deal.

In fact, if the prices are truly fair and reflective of the true cost of the food, then I find it dismissive and insulting to ask for a deal. It is as if we are saying, “I don’t really care how much work, time, and energy it took for you to produce this and get it to me. I don’t really care that you bear the physical scars and injuries inherent in the demanding work you do. None of that is worth the extra 50 cents I want to save.”

That is the tale I would tell my students.

That is the tale I remind myself of every time I want a bargain on something local, organic, and sustainable. Or a bargain on a hotel room. Or a bargain anywhere, really, that means that bargain comes at the cost of devaluing someone’s labor.

Reflections on the Election of Pope Francis

There is an old Confucian proverb about a farmer.  One day,  the farmer’s best horse got loose and ran away.  The neighbors came to offer their sympathies for his loss: “such bad luck” they said.  “Maybe” he replied.  The next day the horse returned, bringing with him two wild horses.  The neighbors celebrated the fortunate turn: “such good luck” the exclaimed!  “Maybe” the farmer replied.  On the third day, the farmer’s son tried to ride one of the wild horses, but he was thrown off and broke his leg.  The neighbors (being the nosy bunch that they were) again offered sympathies: “such bad luck!”  “Maybe,” he replied yet again.   On the fourth day,  military officials came to the town to draft young men into the military.  They passed the farmer’s son by because of his leg.  “Such good luck,” the neighbors replied. “Maybe” said the farmer…

The Catholic social media universe was buzzing following yesterday’s news.  Since Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was largely an unknown quantity to us here in the United States, most people were trying to piece together an image of the new head of our Church.  First came the wave of obvious “firsts” – he’s the first Latin American Pope, the First Pope from outside Europe in over 1000 years, the first Jesuit Pope, and finally, the first Pope to choose the name Francis after Francis of Assisi.    Next came his first public address, which he opened by asking the faithful to pray for him rather than by offering his blessing on the faithful.  Then came the news that as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he had made a point to live in a small apartment, take the bus to work, and to cook his own meals.

For most of my more liberal Catholic friends, this was a day to celebrate.  From a conclave that consisted entirely of cardinals named by the past two, highly conservative Popes, the expectation was that another highly conservative Pope would emerge.  So when this bus-riding, self-cooking, poor-loving, humble, non-European, non-Vatican-insider emerged, the liberal half of Catholicism rejoiced.

“Maybe,” said the Farmer.

Trust

It is not uncommon for financial institutions to give loans based on an applicant’s capacity to repay. Therefore, the more assets a person has, or the more stable his or her job is, the more probability of getting a loan. Even if one doesn’t have assets or a secure job, he or she should know someone with assets or a secure job to give surety for the loan. We all know that, in reality, the person who doesn’t have assets or stable income has more need of a loan, but the financial institutions don’t work in that fashion. I totally understand the logic, and of course, I know that the operating principle of the financial institutions is not charity. And I am not arguing that charity should be the guiding principle. The purpose of presenting the picture of the financial institutions and the loan applicants’ situation is to introduce the manner in which some people/institutions trust others – they need to be sure of the ability of the person before making a move. This is the same manner in which educational institutions operate. They want to know the applicant’s previous achievements and accordingly honor the applicant with admission and financial offers etc. Please know that I am not against such a strategy, but I wish to move on to provide another manner in which people place trust in others. 

There will be times when we cannot make a decision based on pure reasoning. We have to go by the gut feelings. You are stranded somewhere and you need a ride – at that time, you don’t know if the person who is offering you a ride is a saint or a serial killer. I am sure, that is an extreme example. Consider this then: You are in a situation to hire someone, and you are in a dilemma because you have to choose one from two applicants that have similar experience and qualifications. That’s when you resort to gut feelings. (This happens in the context of educational institutions and financial institutions too. But the situation is a little complex in such settings because the gut feelings of different people on the selection board might be different, those gut feelings need to be rationalized to find support from other members of the board and to come to a consensus.) Although the example of the two applicants has slightly diverted my intended point, what is to be understood is that at times when we make decisions based on our gut feelings it seems like we are standing on sinking sand, when compared to the decisions based on sound reasoning. But that’s far from truth. 

Neither of the manners in which people operate while placing trust in others is fail proof. Let’s go back to our examples: despite all the care that the financial institutions take, there will be defaulters. Similarly, the decision of the admission committees is prone to questioning when someone highly qualified and with many achievements doesn’t perform well upon joining the academic program. The same kind of possibility of being misdirected by our gut feelings is inevitable. We sometimes end up with a lousy and annoying co-worker because of our choice based on our gut feelings. So, the point is that there is a possibility of error in both instances. Before I conclude, let me remind you that, though I have presented reason and feelings as two opposing forces, it shouldn’t be thought so; they complement each other. Finally, the reason in writing this note at this time of thanksgiving season is to be thankful to all those in my life who have placed their trust in me, either based on my previous achievements or simply based on their gut feelings.

Marilyn’s Links: A Carnival of Animal Youtubes on the Feast of Saint Francis

In honor of the Feast of Saint Francis, I offer this Carnival of Empathic Animal Youtubes – a “greatest hits” based on a stringent selection criterion: my memory.  Feel free to offer others in the comments!

 

 

Information is not value free

If printing a gun is the equivalent to the liberation of the printing press, as Cody Wilson claims (see video), then critically thinking about information has hit hard times. Meaning: ideology and violence have become the only methods of “real” communication.

While, I understand that access to information can be empowering, I believe the philosophy behind the Defense Distributed project is oversimplified, naive, and partially paranoid. It does not take into account that we live in a world made complex by a growing population, poverty, restricted resources, and various governmental and economic systems. While I may agree that not all politicians have “the greater good” or the individual rights in mind, these concepts alone deserve greater contemplation than Hobbesian (i.e., “life is nasty, brutish, and short”), Marxian-utopian (i.e., elitist politicians are corrupt and want to only maintain the status quo), libertarian (i.e., we exist only as an aggregate of individuals and as such deserve unfettered access to anything we want, when we want it) cracker-jack platitudes.

http://news.yahoo.com/you-don-t-bring-a-3d-printer-to-a-gun-fight—-yet.html

Reflections on Individualism and Catholic Social Teaching, Part I

The problem with Catholic Social Teaching today is not that it is unknown, but rather that it is almost too commonplace.

[This post was originally published by the author at the St. Augustine Catholic Parish (Oakland, CA) Young Adult Blog.]

It used to be said that Catholic Social Teaching was the “best kept secret” of the Catholic Church.  I am not sure that is really true anymore.  My experience as a Catholic school teacher and my conversations with many friends in the same field make it clear that anyone who has gone through Catholic High School in the past decade has a thorough instruction in the social tradition of the Church.   Catholic colleges under the rubric of Catholic Social Teaching were far ahead of the surge of mission trips and volunteer opportunities that have now become a normative part of the “college experience” even at non-Catholic schools.  And in the past decade or two, social justice ministries have become standard in most Catholic parishes, with some larger parishes even employing a full-time social justice minister.  Here at St. Augustine, incidentally, “social justice” (a heading that includes our Corazon mission, St. Vincent de Paul, and our Kenya Project) was our second most popular answer to “Where do we want to grow at St. A’s?” and our eighth most popular response to “What do we value at St. A’s?” in our recent parish transition meeting.

It seems to me, that the problem with Catholic Social Teaching today is not that it is unknown, but rather that it is almost too commonplace.  We take it for granted that as Catholics we stand for human life and human dignity and that we stand on the side of the poor and the vulnerable without ever really reflecting on how special that is, or what that really ought to require of us.   Like most faiths, Catholicism has a set of moral standards for how individuals ought to act: rules of individual behavior like “thou shall not kill” and “honor thy father and mother.”  But unlike many other belief systems, our faith also teaches us a vision of society that we are to work toward together – a vision of what God’s Kingdom ought to look like.  This was the subject of most of Jesus’ parables: “The Kingdom of God is like… a mustard seed… a good Samaritan… the feast for the prodigal son.”   Our Church, in the body of encyclicals and conciliar documents that has come to be known collectively as Modern Catholic Social Teaching, has brought these teachings forward, examined the “signs of the times,” and identified the most pressing social concerns of our day so that we may each do our part to work toward the Kingdom of heaven.

Taxing religion to fund health care

If the Hippocratic Oath can be taken as the highest ideal of the medical field—separate from the economic structures that have built up around it—then something like health care should be judged by its purist ideals, i.e., the Hippocratic Oath. In that sense health care is more than a mere product. Those who reduce it to a mere product in the health care debate take this oath of healing and comforting out of context. However, if those who do wish to reduce health care to a mere product that is bought and sold in an economic market, why don’t they do the same with religion? Institutional religions are, by necessity, run in similar ways to businesses and their product is that of salvation. This is not so dissimilar from the way medical care needs to be run in a business-like fashion. Yet, I have yet to hear that we should treat religious goods as products or that we treat the actual organizations of religion as businesses. Perhaps, we should separate the highest ideals of religion from its organizational necessity, the same way we do health care. If that is the case, then religious organizations could be taxed as businesses selling products—products that promise healing and salvation. This new tax on these religious organizations that deliver the product of salvation, could, perhaps, go to help fund health care or reduce taxes for the middle class. Any thoughts?

Incumbency and its Discontents

In the early years, we elected incumbents because they were good, often even great. Today, we tend to elect incumbents because they are there.

Did you know that if President Obama is re-elected in November and serves his entire 8-year term, it will be only the second time in history that we have had three two-term Presidents in a row (Clinton, G.W. Bush, and Obama in this case)? And the first goes all the way back to the triumvirate of founding fathers, Jefferson (1801-09), Madison (1809-17), and Monroe (1817-25). In fact, only 19 of the 44 US presidents have been re-elected (though FDR did it three times). Even accounting for FDR’s long run, as a national practice, getting re-elected to the presidency has actually been harder than getting elected in the first place.

So why do we think of incumbency as such an advantage in presidential politics?