Who owns your genes?
WHAT:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â BREAKFAST AND PRESS CONFERENCE WITH
    * Sarah Murdoch, National Breast Cancer Foundation Patron
    * Melissa Parke MP
    * Senator Bill Heffernan
    * Senator Nick Xenophon
WHEN: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â WEDNESDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2010 / 8AM
WHERE: Â Â Â Â Â Â SENATE COURTYARD, PARLIAMENT HOUSE CANBERRA
(Adjacent to Senate Chamber, undercover)
MPs from across the political divide will join forces with the National Breast Cancer Foundation and the Cancer Council of Australia to call for an end to the patenting of human genes by bio-technology firms.
"Bio-technology firms should not be granted legal rights over the genes that make up our bodies," National Breast Cancer Foundation Patron, Sarah Murdoch, said. "The existence of these gene patents has already proven to slow down vital research into many diseases, such as cancer."
Patents are typically granted over something an individual or organisation has created. However in recent years in Australia, and around the world, bio-technology firms have been granted a number of patents over isolated human genes and gene products identical to those that occur in the human body.
“I first raised this important matter in the Senate in 2008. Patents should be for inventions, not for naturally occurring genes," Senator Heffernan said.
"The granting of gene patents has the potential to have a detrimental impact on healthcare costs, medical research, provision of training and accreditation for healthcare professionals as well as the health and wellbeing of all Australians."
Senator Xenophon expressed concern that some researchers might be driven away from certain fields if they were forced to pay a bio-medical company for the rights to research gene for which it has a patent.
"This is a bit like claiming you discovered the sun and then wanting to charge for sunlight," Senator Xenophon said. "Genes are naturally occurring. Scientists don't create them and corporations shouldn't own them."
Labor MP Melissa Parke will also speak at the event, while Senators Heffernan and Xenophon will detail a Private Senators Bill they plan to introduce in the next sitting week that will outlaw the patenting of human genes.
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For more information, please call Rohan Wenn on 0409 696 531 or Nick Xenophon on 0411 626 677Â Â Â