PropertyProf Blog

"House" the television medical drama and race specific drugs

Did anyone see the recent episode of the television medical drama, House, in which the black doctor on Dr. House's team assigned a high blood pressure medicine to an older black male patient after telling the patient something along the lines that the drug works really well on "us" meaning blacks?  The patient was skeptical and refused to take the drug.  He made a new appointment, this time to see Dr. House who, after chastising the patient essentially for being stupid, prescribed him the same drug.  Of course, anyone familiar with the show would not be surprised to know that Dr. House, in order to get the patient to fill the prescription, misrepresented what he was prescribing and told the patient that he was prescribing the same medicine that he would give to his white patients when, in fact, he wrote the prescription for the same drug the black doctor had prescribed.  The unsuspecting patient went away happy as a lark.

This episode caught my attention because of Dorothy Roberts' work on race-specific pharmaceuticals, specifically BiDil, which is advertised as a drug designed to treat heart failure in blacks.  It was really interesting to see the concept of race specific medicine presented on prime time.  There was never any discussion amongst the characters about whether there is any real genetic basis for targeting drugs to patients based on race.  I am interested in how IP is driving this new demand / trend?

Carol N. Brown

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Who owns the DNA of indigenous peoples?

An article in today's New York Times explores issues surrounding a National Geographic Society project to collect DNA from indigenous groups around the world.  One of the project goals is to map prehistoric migration patterns.   Scientists have collected DNA samples from members of indigenous groups in many parts of the world, but a controversy has accompanied collection efforts from Alaskan natives.  Amy Harmon, DNA Gatherers Hit Snag: Tribes Don’t Trust Them, N.Y. Times, Dec. 10, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/us/10dna.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
I recommend the entire article. Here are a few excerpts:

At issue is whether scientists who need DNA from aboriginal populations to fashion a window on the past are underselling the risks to present-day donors. Geographic origin stories told by DNA can clash with long-held beliefs, threatening a world view some indigenous leaders see as vital to preserving their culture.

They argue that genetic ancestry information could also jeopardize land rights and other benefits that are based on the notion that their people have lived in a place since the beginning of time. . . .

The first large effort to collect indigenous DNA since federal financing was withdrawn from a similar proposal amid indigenous opposition in the mid-1990s, the Genographic Project has drawn quiet applause from many geneticists for resurrecting scientific ambitions that have grown more pressing. As indigenous groups intermarry and disperse at an ever-accelerating pace, many scientists believe the chance to capture human history is fast disappearing. . .

In May, project officials held a stormy meeting in New York with the indigenous rights group Cultural Survival while protestors carried signs reading “National Geographic Sucks Indigenous Blood.” Shortly after, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues recommended suspending the project.

Jim Smith