Rebecca Skloot is an award-winning freelance writer, a contributing editor at Popular Science magazine, and a weekly science & medicine columnist for Slate's new Double X Magazine. She's worked as a correspondent for the NPR show RadioLab, and PBS Nova ScienceNOW. Her writing appears in The New York Times Magazine, O: The Oprah Magazine, Discover and others. She teaches in the University of Memphis's creative writing program. Her first book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, is forthcoming from Crown at the beginning of 2010. It tells the story of HeLa -- the first immortal human cell line ever grown in culture (pictured in the blog's banner) -- and the woman those cells came from. Click Welcome to Culture Dish for an introduction to this blog and its author.
Speaking of the debate over patents interfering with medical care, there's a story in today's New York Times that mentions the drug Iplex, which has shown promise for treating Lou Gehrig's disease -- a deadly and thus far untreatable degenerative disease (also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis).
Earlier this week, the American Civil Liberties Union and several other groups filed suit against Myriad Genetics -- the company that holds the patent on the breast cancer gene. They're hoping to get the breast cancer gene patent revoked, but more than that, they're aiming to stop gene patenting all together.
Today, in my new column in Slate's Double X Magazine, I go into the story of the breast cancer gene and the impact the ACLU claims it's had on science and patient care (a hint: it's not good). I also look at the suit itself, the cases that have come before this one, and what they say about the ACLU's odds for success.
I've covered the long history of legal battles over the ownership of human tissues taken from patients
during biopsies (including one case in which a man's cells were
patented and licensed for millions of dollars without his knowledge). But this is the first lawsuit challenging all existing gene patents, which could have a huge impact on science. It's fascinating stuff, and it'll be interesting to see what happens next (Myriad hasn't responded to the suit yet).
I'll keep covering the case as it moves forward. For now, as a bit of follow up, here are a few specific details from the lawsuit that I wasn't able to fit into my article:
Yes, that's right folks, the end of the world is near, but at least we won't look silly wearing our N95 respirator masks. No. Thanks to Flu Fashion Respirators, we can now avoid swine flu and other plagues while looking like ... bandits from cheesy western movies! Or ... better yet ... hippie bandits! And we can even get designer swine flu respirator masks for the family dog (never mind that dogs can't get the swine flu -- we wouldn't want them to feel left out). What could possibly go better with an over-hyped pandemic threat than
fashion accessories? This press release speaks for itself:
After seven happy years serving as a vice president, I have just finished my second term on the National Book Critics Circle board of directors. While I was on the board, I put together a document of tips for breaking into book reviewing called, Strategies for Breaking in and Staying in: Getting started as a critic, building your reviewing portfolio, going national, and keeping editors happy. It's no longer available on the NBCC's website, and I've gotten quite a few requests for it recently, so I've posted it here for those interested.
Today, in their segment called "Seeing Eye Horse Shocks Store Patrons," Good Morning America featured a woman riding her full sized "Seeing Eye horse" through the grocery store (pictured left). In doing so, it made one of the most common media mistakes: focusing on the quirk factor (woman riding horse in store!) at the expense of the issues involved. The result is a classic oversimplification of a complex story that's pretty misleading about the use of horses as service animals: Most non-canine service animal
users are not, in fact, people who ride horses through stores.
I'm pleased to announce that, starting in May 2009, I'll be writing a weekly science and health column for Slate's new Double X Magazine. I'll be covering any and all science that might be of interest to women (note: I won't just be covering science about specific female issues -- though I'll definitely cover those). Here, from Double X's website, is a description of the new magazine:
Double X is a new Web magazine, founded by women but not just for women, that Slate will launch in spring 2009. The site will spin off from Slate 's XX Factor blog,
where we've started a conversation among women--about politics, sex,
and culture--that both men and women listen in on. The new site will
take the Slate and XX Factor sensibility and apply it
to sexual politics, fashion, parenting, health, science, sex,
friendship, work-life balance, and anything else you might talk about
with your friends over coffee. We'll tackle subjects high and low with
an approach that's unabashedly intellectual but not dry or
condescending. The blog will be at the heart of the site, but we'll
also publish essays, reporting, and other features.
Please submit leads about any interesting new scientific studies or issues for me to consider covering via this address.
Can't blog ... lost in AMAZING ARCHIVE OF MEDICAL IMAGES! Today from BoingBoing:
This previously unreported archive at the National Museum of Health and
Medicine in Washington, D.C., contains 500,000 scans of unique images
so far, with another 225,000 set to be digitized this year. Mike Rhode, the museum's head archivist, is working to make tens of
thousands of those images, which have been buried in the museum's
archive, available on Flickr. Working after hours, his team has posted
a curated selection of almost 800 photos on the service already,
without the express permission of the Army.
"You pay taxes. These are your pictures," Rhode said. "You should be able to see them."
There's been lots and lots written about the ethics of commercially cloning dogs and other pets -- a practice I see as a prime example of extreme human idiocy. Who spends gazillions of dollars cloning a pet dog when it's widely known that (a) the resulting puppies won't be copies of the origianl dog, (b) they'll likely have health problems, and (c) there are SO MANY PUPPIES that need homes? The answer: Very disturbing people, that's who. (And it doesn't look like this problem is going away any time soon.) I say all of this to raise yet another issue I have with the commercial cloning of puppies:
Rebecca Skloot is an award-winning freelance writer, a contributing editor at 
