Good legal advice for Genomics.....

I have often thought that the laws which currently govern genomics, medicine and direct to consumer products are prettty interesting.

Which is why, when we started our medical practices we were going to do an internet distribution of testing and consultation........

This was back in 2005. We sat late up at night in my partners apartment plotting to take over the industry.

We aligned some players and then we obtained some legal advice.......

After that fateful day in 2005, we realized that this was a buzzsaw we did not want to mess with......Especially in New York, Our Market!

So you can imagine my incredulity when we saw 3 companies planning to do precisely what we were advised legally not to do. The mistakes these companies made were exactly the issues we were advised to avoid. We spent a measly 5000 USD for this advice, hardly anything to touch the millions in the banks of these DTC genomics companies.

I then began to think, maybe they didn't have legal advice which was in the know with genomics......I don't think many lawyers are in the know in this space frankly.......


That was until I met Gary Marchant and Dan Vorhaus. Gary is a PhD geneticist and Juris Doctorate at Arizona State and Dan, well Dan is now a blogger and his firm has started what will likely turn out being the best legal resource for genomics out there.......

Robinson, Bradshaw & Hinson, launched a new resource designed to help keep track and make sense of the increasing legal and regulatory activity in the fields of genomics and personalized medicine. The Genomics Law Report focuses on the legal implications of important developments in these fields - including key litigation, legislative, regulatory and policymaking activities –

In 2007 and said that if a young lawyer wanted to make a name for themselves, they would learn genomic medicine and the legal implications........It seems that this firm has had their eye on this for a while now....

Maybe 23andSergey will actually take some advice rather than think they know it all? I know that I sure wish I had these guys in 2005.......we may have been able to create the ideal structure here.......

Imagine all of the millions of dollars in lobbying, regulation writing, lawsuits atc. these fledgling startups would have avoided by seeking Dan's counsel.......

The Sherpa Says: Genomics and the Ethical LEGAL and Social Implications...........Guys, the HGP spent money on this......there is a reason for that......and Now there is a report for that. Genomics Law Report to be precise....

The power of Twitter and why blogging matters.

I am certain there must be a million stories like this out there. Devoted Twitterer attends conference that others cannot, recaps the talks via twitter as physician/new papa/blogger/entrepreneur virtually attends the conference via twitter and can give color commentary......

Or this one: Conference presenters hamstring regular news, while blogger gets strategic advantage by not registering as a journalist. Thus scooping the press...... Well, I have now seen and appreciated both in real time.

This weekend while I was recovering and taking care of our newborn I was able to attend a conference the AAAS hosted a conference entitled "Personalized Medicine, Planning for the Future" it was a scientific freedom, responsibility and the law program......... The microblogger was Dan Vorhaus Esquire and the venue was Twitter.....I know I would have loved to watch the streaming webcast, but alas I had dirty diaper and feeding duty, so I could not get to my laptop.......which led me to the next best thing......my iPhone.

What an amazing invention that IS actually worthy of Time's invention of the Year.......

The next story is a slap down of Daniel MacArthur (Pound for pound the best genomic blogger out there) Welcome back from 2 weeks away Daniel, take your beating! Credit Science Insider

June 2, 2009

Cold Spring Harbor Wants Scientist Bloggers to Follow Media Rules

At a recent meeting at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in New York state, Daniel MacArthur from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, United Kingdom, brought into focus how fuzzy the line between journalist and scientist is becoming. In addition to reporting on genetic variation in a gene that is active in fast muscle fibers at The Biology of Genomes meeting, MacArthur wrote several on the spot blog posts covering advances discussed by the participants. Francis Collins also mentioned results on his new Web site.

A specialized Web-based news service, Genomeweb, complained. Apparently there is some rule regarding when journalists can release information. Usually they are allowed to do so AFTER the meeting.......but Daniel did it before the journalists could, thus scooping them.......

As a blogger who has been sued in the past due to blogging, let me tell you.....this could be scary business..... More importantly, it raises the question about Twitter.....Is twitter a microblog? Or is it a super fast SMS txt?

You see where I am headed with this.

In order for personalized medicine to progress, we all need to be in constant contact to let the flow of new ideas move........Could we actually be legally held to restrict its flow? Personally I think blogging and twittering is not exactly journalism, but it could be......even FoxNews has a twitter feed.

So who is and who isn't a journalist.....this could get almost as tricky as internet startup companies pretending to play doctor by running tests on your DNA and reporting results as if they were actually predictive of something.........

The Sherpa Says: Have to run, patients all morning. But as you drink your coffee and look at your DTC test results and analyze your CYP1A2....think about how much more that ability to microblog at a conference will affect your life than some 1 million SNPs will.........