Read this or this if you want to know what is wrong with the world…  If you do not feel like reading the articles here is a summary.  Researchers at the University of Central Florida discovered a new way to test the bloodstream for MAP (a bacteria) frequently found in Crohn’s Disease patients.  Now instead of simply publishing the results in a peer reviewed journal where the world can benefit from this new knowledge and the researchers can add another notch in the old curriculum vitae, the researchers patented the test and then sold the patent rights to a big pharmaceutical company in Israel for them to use in their own medicine research.

So what? Well, so what is now the cost of that test will go into the price of the medication that the company is producing, and that cost gets passed onto Crohn’s Disease patients.  Not to mention that this new technology will not be useful to others researching Crohn’s Disease.

“Patients will benefit the most because of this breakthrough since it will advance the diagnosis and treatment of Crohn’s disease,” Naser said of the diagnostic technology he created.

I don’t agree, patients would benefit the most if the technology were not patented and then said patent were not sold to a big pharma company.