word from south africa this morning nelson mandela is slowly recovering in his battle against a lung infection. 94-year-old mandela has been in the hospital receiving treatment for a week now. after seeing him last night. south africa s president says mandela remains in serious condition but that he is improving. at the supreme court, landmark decision that impacts millions of american women and involves breast cancer test brought into the public eye by angelina jolie s disclosure of her double mastectomy. the owner behind the test, myriad genetics claimed ownership of the defective gene which increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer yesterday the court unanimously threw out the claim. more companies will offer the test which is expected to reduce its price. today marks six months since the school shooting massacre in newtown, connecticut. a moment of silence observed there this morning to remember the victims. as abc s jeff zeleny reports, families of those who died are press
test that myriad had worked on, that that is patentable? does that involve the synthetic dna that the supreme court affirmed is patentable as opposed to the naturally occurring dna that the supreme court said is not patentable? it does mean that the breast cancer synthetic the technique to get to that point is patentable. but i think what s important is that other companies could potentially come up with a technique to also create that synthetic form or that complementary form of dna. so they didn t so much assay the gene itself at the very top of the food chain here is patentable, but one layer below that, where you have to create that copy, that s patentable. but other people could create their own techniques. so i think that may be where the price of the test comes down and competition is encouraged.
anniversary of when nelson mandela went into the infamous prison, robin island, and that is where he contracted tuberculoids, which is the cause of these respiratory problems that have caused him to the hospitalized, especially in the past few years. we could get an update on his condition tomorrow. president zuma had a previously scheduled event happening in w sowetta, where nelson mandela once lived. if we do get an update, we expect it to happen then. chris jansing, appreciate it. we told you earlier the supreme court ruled today that companies cannot patent naturally occurring human genes. that s a decision that could profoundly affect lucrative medical research. it throws out patent by myriad genetics on an increasingly popular breast cancer test. what s your gut tell you?