Henrietta Lacks Research Paper

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Audrianna LaMora Mr. Arthur English 10 mods 7-8 January 21st, 2015 Do we own our cells? In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot describes the case of John Moore, a man with Leukemia, who had his spleen removed. The doctor who did this surgery not only stole his cells but also sold them and made money off of them. The doctor did not inform John of his intentions. John’s cells now have a value of 3 billion dollars due to how valuable they are. When John found out about his doctor’s intentions he took to the doctor to court. The court informed John that everything the doctor did was under informed consent so it was found legal. The judge “rejected his suit because Moore did not have property interest in the cell line developed by his doctor and that his rights to privacy and dignity were sufficiently protected by doctrine of informed consent”(Devine) Today, due to that court case, patients who have any surgeries must sign a paper giving …show more content…

An unnamed patient decided to use his tissues in a research project. Before they started the project he had to sign a paper of informed consent that said that if he was to say no than the university could no longer use his tissues. The patient took this to court because the university claimed that they had all rights to his cells and that they could use his tissues by removing the name. Although the university believes that they may use his cells by just removing his name, the consent paper that the patient signed puts that in clear violation of the letter and the persons right to withdraw from the project(Burger). Informed consent is necessary in order to argue a case. Without informed consent a patient doesn’t really have any legal arguments over ownership of their cells. In some cases signing consent can’t always help win a case over the ownership of the cells/tissues inside of you. Many cases believing you own your cells/tissues have involved

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