Page 4 - Mid Valley Times 5-19-22 E-Edition

Founded March 26, 1891, in a two-story building on the corner of 11th and F streets, by A.S. Jones
Guest Column
Don't 'March In' on American Innovation
By Sally C. Pipes
Guest columnist
The Biden administration may soon cripple Ameri- ca's economy — inadvertently, of course.
Officials are reportedly giving serious consideration to a "march-in" petition, nominally filed by a handful of cancer patients but promoted by Knowledge Ecology In- ternational (KEI). The petition urges the administration to relicense the patent on an advanced prostate cancer treatment — which is currently manufactured by Astel- las Pharma — to generic drugmakers that could create cheaper knockoffs.
KEI, and a host of allied lawmakers like Senator Eliz- abeth Warren, claim the Biden administration has the authority to do this thanks to a four-decade-old law, the Bayh-Dole Act. Most legal experts disagree with their tortured interpretation of that legislation's "march-in" clause — and in the past, Republican and Democrat ad- ministrations have rejected similar petitions as both il- legal and counterproductive.
But the Biden administration is getting desperate. Se- nior officials may feel they need a win — and can satisfy their progressive base by granting the petition.
That'd be a horrendous mistake with dire long-term consequences. Most Americans have never even heard of the Bayh-Dole Act — but it laid the foundation for America's dominance of high-tech sectors.
Prior to Bayh-Dole, if a university lab received fed- eral grant funding, the government automatically owned any patents that resulted from researchers' work. The government did a poor job of licensing these patents to private sector firms that could turn the promising ideas into real products.
To address this problem, Congress — including Del- aware's junior senator at the time, Joe Biden — over- whelmingly passed the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980 to give universities the right to retain the title to their patents and license them out, even if researchers benefited from federal funding.
By incentivizing universities to license their own re- search breakthroughs to private firms — in exchange for royalties —the Bayh-Dole Act opened the innovation floodgates.
Under the law, the government can "march-in" to reli- cense a patent under exceptional circumstances when a licensee either can't — or won't — bring the idea to market.
KEI and its ilk are trying to twist the plain purpose of the march-in clause. They want the feds to take away As- tellas Pharma's exclusive licensing rights to the patents behind the prostate cancer drug, Xtandi, simply because they think its price means that the medicine isn't avail- able to the public on "reasonable terms."
This is ridiculous, of course. The Bayh-Dole Act doesn't mention pricing when defining "reasonable terms" — and the law's namesakes, the late Senators Birch Bayh (D-Ind.) and Bob Dole (R-Kan.) clarified that they never intended the government to march in because of a readily available product's price.
If that suddenly changes, it will set an economy-dis- rupting precedent. Private companies could hesitate to license patents from universities. Innovation in nearly every high-tech industry could slow to a crawl.
Democrats and Republicans both want to reduce drug costs. With a little wrangling, they could prob- ably even find common ground on ways to do so. But instead, the Biden administration seems poised to cut corners — and inadvertently destroy the foundation of American innovation.
Sally C. Pipes is president, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith fellow in Health Care Policy at the Pacific Re- search Institute. Her latest book is False Premise, False Promise: The Disastrous Reality of Medicare for All (En- counter 2020). Follow her on Twitter @sallypipes. This piece was originally published in the Boston Herald.
A hot and dry summer awaits, so make the most of water recreation
Fred Hall — Publisher Emeritus Jon Earnest — Editor
Dick Sheppard — Editor Emeritus
Thursday, May 19, 2022 | A4 | Mid Valley TiMes Editorial & Opinions
Serving the Readers of the Reedley Exponent, Dimuba Sentinel and Sanger Herald.
A Mid Valley Publishing Newspaper
By the end if this month, eastern Fresno and Tulare county residents will be able to listen to the relaxing flow of water along the Kings River. Just be sure to enjoy it while it lasts.
Following a promising start to the rainfall and snowpack last December, the Central Val- ley (and most of California) eventually degraded into anoth- er below-average precipitation output. It's expected to mean another year of dry to drought conditions, and further ground- water pumping by agriculture to help thirsty crops grow.
It also means that the water release season from Pine Flat Reservoir is unlikely to keep the river flowing heartily for the entire summer. We're already feeling the effects with an early wildfire season in the foothills and mountains — including a devastating and fast-moving in- ferno that destroyed structures in southern Orange County.
The segment of population who enjoys getting out on the
water — be it by boat, individual or pairs watercraft, or merely swimming and wading — like- ly won't have a long season to enjoy the river. For youngsters in Reedley, there is the option of going to the splash pad and fountains at Luke Trimble Park. That will be open by Memorial Day weekend.
Once the river water is flow- ing, be sure to stay cautious and cut down on the alcohol use; particularly in more hazard- ous areas of the river between the Goodfellow Bridge and Reedley. Until then, find a fam- ily member, friend or neighbor with a pool and cool off during the upcoming hot days,
•••
One other risky pursuit with
drought and hot weather is fireworks season. For the law- abiding public, that's limited to the end of June up through the Fourth of July weekend. But we all know better. Many people are blowing off ille- gal fireworks, an activity that seems to have no offseason
when you hear or see those oc- casional aerial- type explosions on any given weekday or weekend night.
Sanger is
in the process
of tightening its city code to toughen enforcement of ille- gal fireworks, and has a con- sent agenda item for the May 19 meeting that would waive a second reading and approve the resolution which doubles fines for igniting illegal fireworks and holding home and proper- ty owners liable for any blasts coming from their property.
•••
Later this week, Reed-
ley College begins the run of graduation/commencement ceremonies with programs on Thursday and Friday, May 19- 20 in the lawn area south of the cafeteria. Congratulations to all the scholastic achievers!
Jon Earnest is news-sports editor for The Times.
No equality between right and wrong
The great cause of freedom; of free speech, of freedom of religion, of a free press; all of these grand principles that Western civilization has fought for and won over almost a thou- sand years ... all of these are being challenged by a growing coalition of ambitious, brutal, power-hungry dictatorships.
It is not enough that we are right or that our cause is just. Evil can prevail — as it did briefly under Hitler, longer un- der Stalin, and is still prevailing today under Putin in Russia, Xi in China, Khomeini in Iran, Kim Jong-Un in North Korea, and The Taliban in Afghanistan. In too much of our planet, the cherished freedoms of Western civilization are in retreat.
However, FREEDOM IS EMPOWERING, in ways that its adversaries can not equal — or come even close to equal- ing. Freedom is unique in that it alone empowers innovation — such as the entire global structure of computers that comprise the Internet; such as
the long list of vaccines (all the way from polio to COVID) that have saved tens of millions of lives. Innovation thrives where ideas are free to grow and blossom. Innovation shrivels and dies where ideas are con- trolled, where governments says what is true.
We must never, never, never, tolerate — even briefly — any limitations on our freedom of speech. The stupid thing I say today might easily cause you to respond with a brilliant, innova- tive idea that brings hearing to the deaf or sight to the blind or hope to those women deprived of an education by the Taliban.
We must never, never, never allow any of our political lead- ers to tell us what is true or what is false. It is in the vast expanse of grey between the extremes of that which is ab- solutely, positively true and that which is absolutely, posi- tively false that virtually all of the great ideas of humankind exist...and we must always, al- ways, always enable those great ideas to grow and blossom.
Jim Spitze Sanger
Memorial Day ceremony in Dinuba
It's time for us to put the dead to rest and remember the fallen. On Memorial Day, May 30, Smith Mountain Cemetery comes alive at 10 a.m. with mil- itary music, speakers, songs, and the laying of the wreath to honor Army soldiers, Marines, Navy and Air Force men and women who have served in the Armed Forces who have passed on.
These veterans of different wars now are buried and their spirits live on, and we must never forget that "Some Gave Some, and Some Gave All." The program is from 10 to 11 a.m., with the firing of a 21-gun sa- lute and the moving sound of a bugle playing "Taps" to end the military ceremony.
Please be sure to bring a folding chair, as sometimes the 30 chairs provided by the ceme- tery are taken up quickly. Dress according to the weather which should be around 80 degrees. The public is invited.
George Madrid Dinuba
Letters from readers
QUOTE
“Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.”
— Bill Watterson (1958 - ), cartoonist, "Calvin and Hobbes"
Jon Earnest
Letters Policy
MID VALLEY TIMES invites letters from the public on any topic of local relevance. We reserve the right to edit letters for clarity or brev- ity, and we reserve the right to NOT publish them if they could be deemed libelous or profane. Letters should be 350 words or less, and bear the author's name, address, and phone number. Letters can be mailed, emailed, submitted via our website, or personally delivered to: Editor, Mid Valley Times, 1130 G St, Reedley CA 93654.
Have an opinion? Want to share it?
jon@midvalleypublishing.com