Next by Michael Crichton

There are a lot of reviews that state this book mixes the comic, bizarre and frightening. I found nothing frightening about it.

Universities, Independent research labs, pharmaceutical companies all have blanket patents on genes. this is fact, legally in America today.

Next explores what happens when companies go beyond what they've gotten legal rights to do and create more. The problems with genetic modification, the problems with a company owning your "unwanted" tissue samples and feeling entitled to replenish their stock if something happens to their supply. Where does ownership end? their children? can that take it from you while still living?

How many types of genes separate humans from apes, what do these genes do? what can we do to them can we make a hybrid trans species ape that talks and reasons? What if it works? What do you do with the essentially child like creature when the company wants it destroyed as so much test subject waste?

At the end of the book are recommendations from Michael himself:
1 stop patenting genes.
2 establish clear guidelines for the uses of human tissue.
3 pass laws to ensure that data about gene testing is made public.
4 avoid bans on research
5 Rescind the Bayh-Dole Act. (from rjladya: I don't know if this has been done or not.)

Then there is a whole slew of books on genetics listed in a bibliography in the back.

Good book, makes you wonder about what is going on in places where research will never see the light of day. I recommend it highly.