Reuters via CNN Money:

Scientists from the United States, Canada and Hong Kong are seeking patents related to the sometimes deadly respiratory infection known as SARS, according to a published report Monday.

The patent applications are believed to claim rights in nearly any diagnostic test, drug or vaccine development to cope with the outbreak and have sparked divisions among researchers over whether discovery of the virus is even worthy of a patent and whether it is appropriate to seek commercial gain from it, the Wall Street Journal reported.

8:35:06 AM    

San Jose Mercury News by Seth Borenstein:

Get used to SARS, West Nile, Hantavirus, Ebola, Nipah, Hendra, AIDS and other new nasty infectious diseases. Health experts say we're living in a new age of infections.

And we have mostly ourselves to blame.

The nation's top scientists say that environmental, economic, social and scientific changes have helped to trigger an unprecedented explosion of more than 35 new infectious diseases that have burst upon the world in the past 30 years. The U.S. death rate from infectious disease, which dropped in the first part of the 20th century and then stabilized, is now double what it was in 1980.

SARS is only the latest of these new new germs.

The article also contains a number of useful web links for further background information.

-Tim
12:18:47 AM