The Thin Blue Line The History of the Pregnancy Test

In 1972, Vaitukaitis, Braunstein, and Ross were ready to publish their major paper on hCG research, in which they described their methodology for using antibodies to the beta subunit of hCG in a radioimmunoassay to identify and measure hCG in the presence of LH. Before publishing, they met with the NIH lawyers to discuss patenting their process. Surely none in the room that day could have predicted the multi-million dollar business that the home pregnancy test would become within the next few decades. However, the test’s usefulness as an accurate tumor marker alone might have justified the patent, since by then the team had already used the test on Clinical Center patients and proved its reliability. But NIH declined to patent the test. Since the work was done using public funds, went the argument, the results should go immediately into the public domain, with no royalties for either the government or the scientists. This policy has since been changed. NIH now submits patents listing the scientists as co-inventors, and the scientists can receive limited royalties from their discoveries. But the millionaire’s life was not to be for the NICHD researchers.