[conspire] Henrietta Lacks

[Ruben Safir]

On Tue, Aug 04, 2020 at 07:00:21PM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Ruben Safir (ruben at mrbrklyn.com):
> 
> [citing WSJ reporter Amy Dockser Marcus:]
> 
> > Abcam ABC -0.08% PLC, a 1,400-person life-sciences company with
> > headquarters in the U.K., is making a gift to the Henrietta Lacks
> > Foundation to support higher-education scholarships in science,
> > technology, engineering and mathematics for descendants of Ms. Lacks.
> [...]
> > The lab of Samara Reck-Peterson, an investigator at the Howard Hughes
> > Medical Institute and professor of cellular and molecular medicine and
> > of biological sciences at the University of California San Diego, said
> > it utilizes the cells, commonly known as HeLa cells after Ms. Lacks, to
> > study and ask research questions. The lab will donate $100 to the
> > foundation for each of the four cell lines that lab members created in
> > the past by making changes to the HeLa cells, and for any cell lines
> > they make in the future.
> 
> This is coolness.  Poor Henrietta Lacks, killed by cervical cancer but
> able to be post-mortem _immortal_ -- literally -- through her vitally
> important cancer cells, deserves more lasting gratitude than just every
> first-year medical student knowing by name about the HeLa cell line.  
> 
> The frequently expressed opinion that her family deserved, dunno,
> royalties?, for the cell line seems more than a bit odd, however.
> 
> As the Wikipedia article points out, caselaw has firmly established that
> persons and their families have no proprietary rights (at least under US
> law) to a person's discarded tissue and cells.  I would be slow to call
> those court rulings (in 1990's Moore v. Regents of the University of
> California, and similar cases) misguided.
> 

I agree.  But I think that in this specfic case, under these
circumstances that her cells were taken, as I understand it, without her
permision, and because of the great financial benifits to the healthcare
companies, that it would be correct for the industry to reach above and
beyond the law, and just do the right thing.

What the right thing is, is a question.


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