Sue Friedman, founder and executive director of Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered (FORCE), says the decision is critically important for anyone who is concerned with hereditary disease. “The Myriad case is just one example of how exclusive patents on genes can hurt consumers,” says Friedman in this guest post for Johns Hopkins University Press. “Gene patents are a universal issue that ultimately affects all of us. Even if hereditary cancer does not run in your family, chances are that you have inherited a genetic predisposition to some disease. Imagine if a company were given exclusive control over all testing and research for a disease that runs in your family…”