The Immortal Cell 157
chromatin writes: "A filmmaker at a college in boston
has been working on the
potentially endless history of Henrietta Lacks which is a fascinating story of where biotechnology comes from and what it does. Lacks died of cervical cancer in 1951, but a small sample of her cancer cells were found to live in culture dishes... and still do. As the first immortal human cell line, HeLa cells are used by researchers today for lots of experiments which whole people simply can't or shouldn't be used for. Working in labs like this with cells like this for several years, it's the first time I've heard her entire name! The Lacks family has never been compensated or really recognized by the scientific community - is this how patenting genes will work?" An odd story, that I've heard mentioned before but never knew much about.
Re:GWB (Score:1)
I don't know, but mentioning Bush and "brain drain" in the same sentence is kind of funny and strangely appropriate. ;-)
Re:Sorry wrong topic (Score:1)
On the other hand, is there any reason we can't make HeLa Pie ?
Yum !
Re:Sigh (Score:1)
Re:Sigh (Score:1)
Ridiculous (Score:3)
That's ridiculous.
Why is it that everything should always involve an exchange of money?! As if money has ever made the world a better place to live in...
Industries seeks compensation (Score:3)
Cell phone and cigarett manufacturers are claiming ownership of any cancer cells that may potientialy be caused by use of their products. A plan for an EULA for use of the products now voids the individuals right to any cancerous cells in the body. It is unclear if the EULA is covering all cells created, both past and presant, and if they are specific to the product being used.
When questioned, spokesmen from the companies admit that this is being used as a way to ofset research costs into creating stronger, longer living cancer cells. Although they appear to want ownership of cancerous cells, they claim no responsibility for the creation of those cells.
Other industries are expected to jump on this compensation bandwagon soon.
Re:Another white devil movie (Score:2)
Re:Another white devil movie (Score:2)
Re:xcuse me? (Score:1)
I don't think the family has to be compensated. You may be able to make an argument that the original woman could be compensated if she didn't agree to donate the cells to science. But, she is dead so there is no one left to compensate.
Compensating the family goes against what I think compensation really means. I get compensated from my employer because I do work for them. My family doesn't get paid for the work *I* do. My family can get compensated after I die because the employer offered a benefits package that has life insurance in it. In that case, it is still compensation given to me, but I chose to have it paid after my death to my family.
My cousin, aunt, uncle, sister, or anyone else has no right to my salary based on family relations. You have just advocated that they do have a right to my salary if I make enough and they want a cut of it.
It is a nice emotional argument to claim that the family should get money because they are poor, but I see no philisophical or logical reason to give them any money. However, it would be good public relations to do so.
Re:In Space? (Score:1)
I doubt (though I'm way too slack to actually read the piece) that they're talking about strapping a brace of test tubes to the nose of an ICBM, pointing at space, and then sending a shuttle a few days later to check how the cells were doing...
Re:Ridiculous (Score:2)
You don't think the money that paid for your house made the world a better place for you to live?
How about the money that bought you your computer?
The money that bought you that last meal? You'd enjoy the world more without food?
Money is what changed the world so that one didn't have to work 18 hours a day merely to get food and basic shelter. Most of the sufferring in the world is due to lack of money, and those sufferring are in EXACTLY the state you'd be in if it weren't for money.
When everybody was scratching out a meager existance and dying of old age at 30, I don't think the world was a better place, sorry.
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who owns your DNA? (Score:2)
DNA that could make a medicine?
For example, the Italian families that have very
low cholestrol.
This issue will come up in the future.
Re:We *do* know why (Score:1)
Re:It's a cash thing... (Score:1)
Wouldn't it bother you if someone made an exact clone of you, and then put that clone to work in the salt mines or picking cotton until he or she (because clones aren't 'it') died? How is it any different for someone to harvest cells from you and put them to work for profit well beyond their (your) natural life span? It may not be slavery of a whole person, but it's definitely slavery of parts of your body. Would it be OK with you if after you suffered brain death due to a disease, doctors re-animated your corpse with a simple microcontroller (a few years from now it could happen) and put you to work cleaning the halls at the hospital? I can't believe that more people don't see the ethical problems involved in enslaving someone's flesh like this.
It's great that medical science can cure this woman's cancer, but it's exceedingly unethical to continue to use these cells without her permission or at least the permission of her family. It's true that they could get cells from anybody to use, and if they don't have permission from her then they should do that instead. Maybe some doctor who's a great philanthropist could donate his cells and ensure that his name is remembered forever. But Mrs. Lacks didn't ask for immortality and it's unethical to force it upon her.
Re:Compensations... (Score:1)
But when you drive your Ford SUV like a sports car and it rolls over and maims your stupid ass, do you sue Ford?
You bet :)
Re:Another white devil movie (Score:1)
Maybe you'd be willing to volunteer for immortality in a petri dish in her place, since you can make the decision and she never was given the opportunity. No matter how great the cause, you can't ethically subject a person's body to experimentation after their death without their consent. Would you mind being dug up by medical students after your death and used for studies that advanced human medicine, while you were expecting to just lie and rot in peace instead? The ends do not justify the means.
I can kind of see her point - if this happened to a white woman in the 1950s, do you think the medical community would have been quite so cavalier with her cells, including keeping the information from her family for so long? Let's face it - one of the reasons that Mrs. Lack was an ideal subject was because her family was poor, black, and wouldn't kick up a fuss about any postmortem exploitation of her body.
Re:We *do* know why (Score:1)
Very interesting - I remember reading a book called "The Duplicated Man" by James Blish, about a colony on Venus that declared their independence from Earth. They were ruled by a huge man who was effectively immortal but slowly losing his humanity, because the secret to immortality was to effectively give all of your cells cancer and make them immortal. So his body would never die (and in fact was always growing), but his mind was another story...
The actual story was mostly about a machine that could duplicate people (sorta), if you're wondering about the title.
Re:Bullshit. (Score:1)
If my foot were in such a situation, it should be up to me what happens to it. Remember, her cells aren't magically immortal; researchers have to nourish them to keep them alive. If they were still in her body or were left in the operating room, they would have long been dead by now. It's more like a person in a persistent vegetative state who needs a heart and lung machine - the body may live indefinitely, but there's no person involved anymore. In that case the person's family gets to decide when to pull the plug. In Mrs. Lack's case her body has been essentially kept on life support for fifty years, which is almost assuredly not what she or her family would have wanted. How would you like to find out that your grandmother wasn't really buried even though you thought that you had?
It's great that her cells are special and have helped cure diseases. I'm glad that such cells can do some good in the world. But it should be up to her and her family to decide what uses those cells can be put. And if they don't want to contribute to the progress of science, that should be their choice.
Sigh (Score:1)
Riiiight....
Its one of *those* documentaries...
Re:Sigh (Score:2)
I simply mean that it appears not to be a science documentary, but rather one of those "personal axe to grind" movies.
It's a cash thing... (Score:2)
I find it very hard to believe that people in the US can't get health care (or "struggle" to get it). If they don't have it, then it's because they haven't tried. When I was young my family had very little money, and we went to the county hospital for everything from TB to broken bones. You showed up, avoided the prisoners chained to the benches next to you, saw a doctor (who maybe didn't speak English so well), got treated and left. I don't remember any of us every whining about it or asking for any pity or using our fairly austere upbringing to lend a sad yet authoritative note to some third party's wank of a film. They removed cancer from her. You don't typically get compensation for that kind of thing. At least, people didn't used to. Now that we have socially correct, wooly-headed thinkers like Charlene Gilbert around, that might change.
I wonder how many epidermal cells I've lost without receiving adequate compensation? Someone probably owes me cash. That air handler at Disney World stole my cells! I struggled to make those as a poor child! They traded my flesh for entertainment! I want cash! Someone make me a film about poor children! Breadwinners want their slice!
Either that or we can start a dialog, and talk about all the issues surrounding our cultural paradigm with respect to ethical consent and the shifting mores of a society wrenched with knowing it paid for people whose cells have been also traded as so much chattel and will live on into the next century long after we're all gone but still thinking of the viable mythlike qualities of the implicable ramifications of its moral institutions...
What a load. I want a grant too.
-B
Dragon Ball Z? (Score:1)
:)
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Diffrent thing (Score:2)
Cancer cells don't have that problem, as the ends, or telomers(sp?) are maintained. That way, you can have a huge amount of research material from just one small sample.
Re:This case is tame compared to John Moore's (Score:1)
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jvev atvf gurm rabs pern gvba
Re:It's a cash thing... (Score:2)
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Re:Sigh (Score:1)
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." U.S. Const. am. 13, sec. 1. [findlaw.com]
???
Spread around the world (Score:1)
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Re:More then money... (Score:1)
Aieee, that opens up a whole new can of worms. Compeled to donate cells for cancer research, hmm seems harmless enough.
Compeled to donate cells for "eternal youth" type research, ok thats not so bad but getting worse.
How about compeled to donate cells for military research (ie disease resistance, strength, intelligence, etc.)
personally i only see dangers in compelling someone to "donate" (btw donate usually connotates a voluntary action) something they dont want to.
Personally I think an agreement along the lines of organ donor agreements of today would be the most elegant solution (noticing we dont compel people to donate organs that could save many lives even though it's no skin of their backs (figurativly)).
Re:uhhhh (Score:1)
Re:It's a cash thing... (Score:1)
Very interesting (Score:2)
Er, sorry it just slipped out!
--
Aaron Sherman (ajs@ajs.com)
Re:Sigh (Score:2)
Besides, the fact that black Africans were involved doesn't negate the wrong done by white Americans (obviously).
Re:More then money... (Score:1)
Compensation madness (Score:3)
There are plenty of other people with cancer in the world, whom I'm sure would give a cancer cell sample for free if it would contribute to finding a cure.
Cancer cells may be immortal, insofar as they don't undergo programmed cell death, but they usually continue to mutate at an incredible rate relative to healthy somatic cells - there will be a great number of genetic differences between todays HeLa cells and the original healthy host cells. It isn't as if someone's 'genes are being stolen'.
More then money... (Score:5)
The paragraph in question:
"I'm interested in the ethical - or not so ethical - relationship between Henrietta Lacks, her family, and Johns Hopkins University," Gilbert said, noting that the Lacks story is a cautionary one with major implications today. Neither Henrietta nor the Lacks family gave permission for her cells to be used for research; in fact, the family didn't learn about the proliferation of HeLa cells until the early 1970s. The Lacks family - still poor and struggling to access health care - has not been compensated for the use of Henrietta's cells.
I checked, although not very carefully, and it seems this is only mention of compensation in the article. It's not even a demand for compensation but a statement of a fact, although made in a way undeniably suggests that a compensation of some sort might be in order.
Even though I agree that a demand for monitary compensation for the cells would pretty questionable, I find it hard to sympathize with those who read the article and found that particular detail the only thing worth commenting on. What about the ethical questions about, for example as there are many that could be asked, persons right to decide what happens to her body? What about funny feeling you get (well, I get at least) when you think about immortality? What about those experimental documentry techniques?
The researchers didn't ask your Mrs. Lacks permissions to use the cells. That's wrong, but not very surpricing as this was the 50's. Lack's family didn't learn about this until the 70's, wrong too. The doctors and researchers do not have any moral right to decide what happens to a patients body, including body parts like organs and cells. Patient's rights must be paramount to doctor's.
There is no question that HeLa cells were extremelly useful for medical research. While usefulness to a researcher does not have baring, usefulness to society does have. A patient must have the right to deny a researcher use of her cells, but I would also content that society has the right to overturn that denial. This should not be taken as a carte blanc assertion that the need of many outweight the right of few. This is a basis for a pragmatic proposal to this difficult question. I for one would feel rather silly if some poor bitter bastard, that had with a chance-mutation developed a cure for cancer, wanted to take it with him to the grave. There ought to be some way to compel him to donate the cells needed (assuming of course that it's just a few cell and not a leg or an eye). Such action should be rare and the procedure formalized, transparent and under democratic control.
I'm far for certain that all questions involed in "commercalization of the human body" would have nice pragmatic solution. In those cases I think we will be better of going with the rights, even if other choices would present clear and useful benefits.
--Flam
Re:xcuse me? (Score:1)
Cell (Score:1)
Re:Ridiculous (Score:1)
This case is tame compared to John Moore's (Score:4)
Full details are here [fplc.edu].
A few questions... (Score:2)
1. Lack came from an extremely poor family, the article says. If this is the case, she probably wasn't paying for the hospital bills for cervical cancer. What was her treatment, and how much (if any) did she pay?
2. If the hospital did provide any services for free, it seems very possible that she may have signed waivers at some point. In addition, seems like going to the hospital to have a cancer removed is pretty much relinqueshing it.
I'm not trying to troll here, just raise a few points. Maybe she was compensated, to some extent (not necessarily enough) by free/cheap medical service. Maybe that when we go to the hospital to have something removed (like an appendix, tonsils), we do give it to the hospital. Maybe she did sign some waivers giving the hospital rights here.
The other issue is, can we expect hospitals to ask you to sign a wavier for every urine, blood or other type of sample? You're giving up your cells to them, and, if they have anything of interest, they could very well end up in a lab without your permission!
Please be kind.. I know I may be making a few points against a woman who should have been compensated.
Where's the line? (Score:1)
Re:Ridiculous (Score:1)
Yet Another Reason Why US Patent Law Is Broken (Score:2)
I remember reading that one said person said that the money wasn't important. Its the fact that big pharma companies turned a completely selfless and charitable action into a big money, unquestionably defensable patent that irritated the hell out of him.
Any law that make it illegal to check your body, the most private property on the face of the planet, is inherrantly wrong! Why do we continue to let these pharma companies do this? They claim "..it costs money to do gene research blah blah blah.." but neglect the fact that its stomping all over the rights of everyone out there just to make a buck.
Offtopic But Core Ethical Question The Same (Score:2)
That is a big ethical question in my mind that directly effects gene patents and that is what the article is about. Does US law really want parts of people to exist in perpatuity? Right now once something leaves your body who ever stores can "own" it forever.
As for other information take a look at
this article [feedmag.com]. Its the old story of John Moore who underwent treatment for cancer at UCLA. The doctors there found something unusual in his spleen that fought off the cancer. They took samples, made a patent, and basically made money. Moore's cells are worth a lot of money, probably worth more than any life insurance policy that Moore could get for himself. Besides he hasn't gotten much credit beyond just living.
This article [nwsource.com] shows some anicetoded stuff. Stuff from companies rediculously overcharging just to test for a gene that causes life threatening problems(just the test...not even close to a cure) to limitations on the number of tests per year in the hopes they can get a profitable business deal out of it.
Lets say you are a university researcher(you claim to be) and you want to do a study genes and breast cancer. Oops! You can't do that because according to Myriad Genetics, which holds a bunch of patents on genes responsible for breast cancer, they control that stuff. Heck even with express permission from Myriad a reasearch must run the test the way Myriad Genetics perscribes otherwise you risk going to court(ie. discovering a better test on their patented genes is a big no-no). How many mutations are possible on the same set of genes that may or may not cause cancer? Millions and yet Myriad Genetics controls every facet of anything to do with "genes" and "breast cancer".
You can't do research into why there are different shades of blue eyes or why men go bald even why some people sunburn badly. Hurm...I didn't realize that we needed to defend information on why some eyes are sky blue and others are more blue green. I really do believe this approach and this insane race to patent genes will cripple research. How many projects had to be scrapped because they by accident stumbled into a gene someone patented and couldn't get or afford permission to continue work?
I did get off topic but the core ethical questions is the same: the right of anyone to control their own biology. Does discovering the cure to everything that makes you ill really have to involve stomping on privacy?
Re:Compensation madness (Score:2)
From what I understand, cancer cells are by nature, effectively immortal anyway. Sort of...
Every cell has it's own "time bomb", a set of molecules called telomeres. Each time a cell is divided, a few beads of the telomeres get cut off so that when no more beads are left, the cell merely dies instead of dividing.
Cancer cells produce a coating that covers the telomeres called telomerase. (I think that's the word.) When covered with this, the beads don't get cut off and the full telomeres get reproduced whenever the cell divides... thus, the group of rogue cells never stops dividing. The reason that cells are designed to die after a certain period of time is so that major mutations in the DNA don't spread too far or too quickly and kill the organism.
This is, however, uncontrolled growth. Cancer. It cannot make a normal functioning organism live forever. Besides, this wouldn't apply to certain organs such as the brain whose cells never reproduce.
But research is currently active on studying cell mitochondria, which are apparently directly linked to aging. It goes that if you can make the cell mitochondira work forever, that your body would never age.
IANABiologist, so any of the above is not guaranteed to be accurate and might be plain wrong. I'd love to hear some input from someone who actually studies the science.
Re:Yes, of course she should have been paid... (Score:2)
This case isn't as simple as the one you posited, where the money is in the bank (well, somebody's bank) even before the sample is obtained.
To make your analogy fit this case, it would be more like this:
The State Barber Association finds a problem w/ cutting certain types of hair and needs to find clippings to see why it is so difficult to cut this hair. Your barber looks through piles of hair and finds your hair matches. They study your hair and gain a better understanding of how to cut your type of hair. Now, maybe barbers make a little more money from people helped out by this technique as their haircuts come out much better than they did before. It would be very hard to prove how much money they got, though.
<tongue_in_cheek> As far as your assertion that you own every cell that originated from your body, I forsee many more problems w/ this than the problems you suggest. Imagine one day your are fined for improper disposal of bodily material when your skin and hair fall off your body and contaminate offices, restaurants, chip fabrication plants, etc.. We need to pay people to clean up this mess or spend the time ourselves to clean this up. When you start paying your bills, then we'll talk about residuals.. </tongue_in_cheek>
Re:Compensating for cancer cells? (Score:1)
Re:Immortal (Score:2)
Of course she did. How do you think she died?
Re:More then money... (Score:2)
It's more likely that you can do this test on dead hair cells. Most other forensics work fine on lay people's hair, which is made up of dead cells.
Re:body parts as property (Score:2)
Now that I understand your post, I was going to speak to it. But then I realized that it just has a question in it (as does your response to me). I don't have the answers to these questions. I think it's certainly possible that the same marketplace economics should be applied to the medically useful cells as the souveniers, but that the two are in different situations. If we could somehow revive Napoleon's cells and then cause them to reproduce, then I really don't see why the marketplace economics should be different. But since we haven't done that with Napoleon's cells, we're going to have to use these ones on their own to determine the rights involved. Then later, when we can revive Napoleon's cells, we can apply the marketplace economics we've established here.
Re:Compensation madness (Score:3)
Regular cells may be immortal too:
An experiment which lasted 29 years was to unveil something quite remarkable, something which could have important significance on the life span of man in the future. Dr Alexis Carrell of the Rockerfeller Institute for Medical Research, took small samples of heart tissue from a chicken embryo and immersed them in a solution from which they obtained all the necessary nutrients. As the cells took up the nutrient rich broth, they also excreted their metabolic wastes into the same solution. Each day, the old solution was discarded and replaced with fresh broth. This chicken heart tissue lived for 29 years, only dying when the assistant forgot to change the polluted fluid. (note: when I first heard about this ... "study", they said the cells had died when the project was discontinued, 'csuse the figured they could keep them alive forever.) Commenting, Dr. Carrell said:
"The cell is immortal. It is merely the fluid in which it floats which degenerates. Renew this fluid at intervals, give the cell something on which to feed and, so far as we know, the pulsation of life may go on forever..."
Google search for "immortal chicken cell" [google.com]
So if you could find a way to quickly & effectively remove remove all wastes from the fluid surrounding your cells every day, and replace that with fresh nutrients (more than those found in the typical refined fare), maybe you wouldn't have to fall victim to "programmed cell death", or at least not so soon. (hey, it's just a possibility, and a remote one at that, everyone still dies eventually)
Cameron: May I assume you're imagining longer, healthier lives?
Harman: Absolutely. The fact is, if you get sick at 65, you're going to be sick for a long time. But if you're healthy and productive well into your 90s and you get sick at, say, 95 or 100, at that age the body cannot tolerate trauma. You die quickly. With the kind of longevity I'm postulating, society gets the benefit of many more years of experience from the elderly (65 and older) and oldest old (85 and older) without the old being a burden on society. Mother Nature did not mean for us to live forever, but that does not mean we should not try to increase our functional life span. In the ideal scenario one would live a long, active, useful life, then die quickly.
A report on Superhealth [buildfreedom.com]
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Re:We *do* know why (Score:1)
Without going into unnecessary detail, basically it is because the cell gathers several mutations, which screw up certain controls on the cell cycle. Thus the cell is eternaly in the 'growth phase'
To put it into somewhat geeky techno speak, these cells are equivalent to "magic" packets on a network with an infinite TTL. Just in case anyone couldn't understand what he said. Oh, and to use the word "equivalent."
TEHE cells (Score:2)
Re:college in boston? (Score:1)
What I find humorous is that a Google Search [google.com] of that phrase returns the official City of Cambridge [cambridge.ma.us] website as the first match.
You know you watch too much cartoon network when.. (Score:1)
Re:I'd love it... (Score:1)
Re:Ridiculous (Score:2)
Re:Compensation madness (Score:1)
As one of these people, I would be happy to know that my right nut was being used to research a cure for cancer. I wonder if the cells need to be of a certain type of cancer (ie, seminoma, non-seminoma, terratoma, etc.) to be HeLa cells.
Re:Well, here's a thought... (Score:1)
Ethical use of humans and human tissues in scientific experiments is generally considered to require anonymity for the subject. Otherwise, an awful lot of supposedly confidential medical information about specific individuals would be published. Maybe, 40 years later, it's not entirely relevant that Mrs Lacks had cervical cancer, but I'm sure I wouldn't want the world to know if I were taking an experimental AIDS treatment, for example.
Re:We *do* know why (Score:1)
Re:Well why not study and find out WHY!!! (Score:1)
Re:I can drill for oil on your land for free then? (Score:1)
Who is making money off these cells? I know the piece this story links to is a bit confusing, but I can assure you that there's no-one out there making money off the cells. As someone pointed out, they are available by the ATCC (American Type Culture Collection) for $167. This is not a lucrative business, I would assume it about covers their costs of storing the cells and administrative efforts.
Also, when you (as a researcher) buy a vial of these cells, you can make your own stocks. Indeed, probably, you wouldn't even have to order them, somebody in your institute probably has a stock she's willing to share.
Invaluable research tool - yes
Lucrative business - definitely not(so far at least)
Re:Your cells are free, HeLa Cells cost $$ (Score:1)
Hmmm
Of course, there is the other issue, which is: How many novel findings have been made with these cells, could they have been obtained without them, and has any of these findings produced something with commercial value.
This is always an issue with basic research, in itself it generates nothing of commercial value, but the insights might lead to an idea for an anti-cancer drug or whatever. Now, where do you draw the line? Can you really still directly attribute a new drug to the very HeLa cells, with which somebody did some research maybe twenty years before, not related to that drug discovery (the time-to-market for novel drugs is somewhere between 15 and 25 years)
I think there is another point that gets lost when you read the original article: While HeLa cells were the first immortalized cell line, there are many others now on the market, so the cells are not quite as unique as the article makes you believe.
(...)but I still think it's sad that Henrietta Lacks' contribution was never recognized and someone else got the glory. ...
Well, in the biology crowd, the name Henrietta Lacks certainly is known, even though her story is often told as an anecdote. But more recognition in the public would be certainly nice. On a side note, since then, researchers have agreed not to name derived cell lines after the patients they were obtained from (as in HeLa). This was decided on in an effort to keep the cells name separate from any individuum, for whatever that's worth
Re:Offtopic But Core Ethical Question The Same (Score:1)
You are right...its not strictly about patents but the fact that people have been using "stuff" from *other people* for "fun and profit" even though it might not be intended that way.
I agree. I am very much against gene patents, in the least since there is no invention behind it. In my mind, a patent must have an invention behind it (OK, not necessarily true in US patent law, I know). After all, that's what is the essence of it, not a discovery, but an invention ... not chance, but skills.
At the same time, I think, however, that in the same line of reasoning, you don't hold the rights to your own genetic material. You didn't invent it, if anybody, it should be your parents and their decision to have sex at a specific time, chosing a specific pair of egg and sperm, which before had undergone genetic recombination in a certain way. Since you can hardly influence that, your DNA IMHO is not your intellectual property. They (the researchers) shouldn't own the rights, in the same way, you can't hold the rights. They should be public is what I am trying to say.
And considering the Moore story, I have read about that, too. And I don't like at all what happened there. But it's like everywhere in life, there are morally bad researchers and better ones. So I think we have to look at these stories put into a larger perspective, and in that way, we are not faring all too bad.
This article shows some anicetoded stuff. Stuff from companies rediculously overcharging just to test for a gene that causes life threatening problems(just the test...not even close to a cure) to limitations on the number of tests per year in the hopes they can get a profitable business deal out of it.
Lets say you are a university researcher(you claim to be) and you want to do a study genes and breast cancer. Oops! You can't do that because according to Myriad Genetics, which holds a bunch of patents on genes responsible for breast cancer, they control that stuff.
Oops, too, that is not true. You are allowed to do as much research as you like. You are not allowed to commercialize your results without a license from Myriad, however. But using the patented genes for studies or truncation assays or or or is perfectly legal in academic research (to my state of knowledge) There are plenty of academic research projects on BRCA1 (the gene Myriad patented), just have a look on PubMed [nih.gov] for BRCA1.
How many projects had to be scrapped because they by accident stumbled into a gene someone patented and couldn't get or afford permission to continue work?
Again, none if you do research for the sake of gaining knowledge. If you want to start a company on your findings, then, yes, time to change projects ... But I think the ethical debate we're having is about research itself, no?
I hope I contributed something informative, and not just flamebait :)
Bzzzzt! You're off-topic ... (Score:2)
This story is _not_ about patents, not at all.
People have come forward to hospitals saying "I should be dead but I've developed an honest resistence to [nasty disease]". Doctors run said person's blood and other private bodily fluids off to some lab somewhere, make patents, write papers, and get famous while the original people who were honestly trying to selflessly save the lives of others is completely left out(...).
Could you please back this up with some actual information, i.e. facts?
Any law that make it illegal to check your body, the most private property on the face of the planet, is inherrantly wrong! Why do we continue to let these pharma companies do this? They claim "..it costs money to do gene research blah blah blah.."
What law are you talking about?
And actually, while I see your point somewhat, don't forget that the development of a new drug takes 15-20 years, involves a lot of researchers (who expect a paycheck), expensive instruments, reagents, incredibly expensive clinical studies. The pharma company expends all of this in advance, and when a drug gets on the market, they'll have only a few years before the drug can be legally copied. And they want some return on investment. This is what makes drugs so expensive.
You might think that the big work is done when your person walks in to the doctor with her strange resistance, but it's not ... It's just the beginning of a multi-year/multi-million dollar process.
disclaimer: I am a university biologist, not connected with industry in any way
Yay! (Score:1)
Re:Your cells are free, HeLa Cells cost $$ (Score:1)
uhhhh (Score:1)
Compensation (Score:2)
Whatever happened to 'for the greater good' that the left keeps telling us about? Oh, that's only when they want to take rights away from 'the people.' I forgot.
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page [cavalrypilot.com]
The cells are _not_ the woman (Score:2)
from an actual human does not imply the cells
which have propagated are actually a part
of that same human. Remember you shed skin
cells by the dozens, loose hairs, etc. every
day again. And cells alone do not make a human.
The actual work done is _not_ by the human which
has donated/been ripped off its cells, but by
the researchers or analysts. This is
completely different from slave labour where
the work done _was_ in fact by these people being
sold
Bottom line: the donor did not add anything
substantial to the cells being propagated
apart from having it abstracted for her own
benifit (getting medical care) and thus
does not have right to any compensation.
The case of patenting genes is of a completely
different order. Here research is not rewarded
its "just" compensation through a patent,
but is effectively all FUTURE research being killed off.
This last fact can e.g. prohibit finding a cure
for a disease simply because it involves the
malfunction of a patented gene, and the patentees
do not find it cost-effective to do the research
themselves.
Regards,
Re:In Space? (Score:1)
Exactly. I've also read that they've been known to replace other cultures acting as accidental contaminants because they are so hardy and aggressive to the point of causing serious problems for researchers because they end up unknowingly working with something different than what they're supposed to be working with. I remember that a book was written about these cultures quite a few years ago (the book title I remember is probably A Conspiracy of Cells [amazon.com] ).
Re:Compensation madness (Score:1)
Regular cells are *not* immortal. The experiment you mention has been discredited for years because someone proved that the "nutrient broth" that the guy was using to feed his chicken cells contained chicken cells, so he was continually reseeding his culture dishes with new cells. Apparently the problem was a faulty centrifuge in his lab.
This study spawned all kinds of quackery by claiming (in part) that if you just led a clean enough lifestyle that you would could live forever, which is bullshit. Normal cells isolated from tissue are not immortal- they can usually only be passaged a certain number of times before they stop growing.
Re:Okay so they live forever. Why can't other cell (Score:1)
As for some of your other questions, other cancer cells *are* immortal and will replicate endlessly. Also, regular cells can be immortalized by fusing them with cancer cells (=hybridoma) or by infecting them with a virus.
Re:xcuse me? (Score:1)
With a typo like that, I wonder what you are?
Re:FEH! (Score:1)
Well, there's some Luc Besson movie I wanna see with him in it, but not till I get back to the states and can see it with ENGLISH subtitles.
Never heard of Mean Guns, though...is it better than Avalon?
IP on genetic material (Score:2)
My opinion on this topic is: since genetic material is, by its nature, not unique, it should not be possible to patent it. Therefore, the family should not receive anything, however it should also be obligatory for the researchers to put the results of their investigation into public domain. As of any future developments using that genetic material, any company should be allowed to use this material for the manufacturing of drugs.
Genetic material is in most cases not unique. Therefore it will not be just to allow the grabbing of discoveries by someone who was simply the first to spot some phenomenon. Genetics contain enormous goods and evils for the whole of humanity, therefore the custody over it should also be common.
As of the economic issue, I am aware that research costs money; however big biotech companies can just as well finance their research labs as they do now, since practical use of genetic technologies also calls for considerable investments, decreasing the possibilities of parasitical competition.
Yes, of course she should have been paid... (Score:2)
A hair dye company is having great trouble finding a particular shade of brownish blondish hair. They offer a $100 million dollar bounty to the State Barber Association for a sample of this exact hair color.
Turns out it's your exact hair color. Your barber takes your hair clippings and retires forever. You don't find out until after the fact.
Tell me how many milliseconds would go by before you would be on the phone to a lawyer.
If anyone owns anything, you own your own body. You own every piece of it, every hair, every cell, every little bit of it. Ms. Lacks give a part of her body so her physician could try to cure her disease, a service she presumably paid for.
She did not authorize this. She did not LICENSE this use of her tissues. If you're going to be a capitalist, then don't be a hypocrite. This was, quite simply, a theft of Ms. Lacks' property. She deserves compensation.
Not the first... (Score:2)
For about 5 billion years, the same single cell that spawned on this planet has been splitting and mutating into the many varieties we see today. As the only species on the planet capable of understanding this, it is our duty to make sure we don't screw it up, making that cell's long struggle a complete wasted. In a sense, that cell, and thus humanity, is this planet's attempt at reaching beyond its primitive boundaries and propagating further through the universe. We are nothing more than a stage in a process of macro-panspermia. If we don't destroy ourselves, we'll be able to coat the universe with all sorts of life, moving that immortal cell onward to other worlds.
Re:More then money... (Score:2)
The outrage was naturally focused on the greedy, gimme-money-for-nothing-for-we-sue demand for payment made by ... nobody.
The issue of compensation goes to the heart of the ethical issue. It points up the difficulty of applying legal principles of ownership in situations that were completely unanticipated in framing the principles.
For instance, under the The Three Stooges principle [threestooges.com], the Lack family might have a claim unless the users of the cells transformed them so that they were deriving benefit from the result rather than the original cells.
If conventional property rights to do not apply to cells, then what rights do apply? If the cells are not the property of the individual, what other parts of the body are not the property of the individual? If the cells have value, who has claim on that value?
The issues did not arise in the past because cells, unlike property, did not survive outside the body. Now that they do, all cellular matter inadvertently takes on the attributes of property.
If you argue that cells are not property for legal purposes but something new, you might have to define a new right in the U.S. Constitution that resembles the 5th Amendment [cornell.edu] that says no one shall be "deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law."
Such an amendment might say "No person shall be deprived of cellular matter, limbs, organs or bodily fluids without due process of law. The rights attached to cellular matter shall not apply to any material derived, decended or cloned from said cellular matter. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
Re:Missing the point... (Score:2)
Missing the point... (Score:3)
It sounds like everyone is falling into the whole copyright debate, rather than realizing the importance of the cells themselves.
further information (Score:3)
http://www.univ-relations.pitt.edu/pittmag/cultur
http://www.jhu.edu/%7ejhumag/0400web/01.html [jhu.edu]
We *do* know why (Score:4)
We do know why cells like these and other immortal cell lines live forever.
Without going into unnecessary detail, basically it is because the cell gathers several mutations, which screw up certain controls on the cell cycle. Thus the cell is eternaly in the 'growth phase'
For those of you who hunger for more info:
http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/instruct/mcclean/plsc43
You can buy some HeLa cells here... (Score:3)
http://phage.atcc.org/cgi-bin/searchengine/direct
Only $167.00.
Could it be that this woman is the single largest human in the world with millions of her reproducing cells, even being sold on the Internet?
Re:Sigh (Score:2)
Perhaps by "this" country she means Africa and not the USA? Or are we now pretending that black Africans didn't supply the slave trade?
Re:Sigh (Score:2)
Gee whizz, really? So is America. Two, even. The original quote was "African-American". If the author has specified from which part of Africa her ancestors were abducted, I would have used that.
Besides what? If that's your only point, why bother making it if it's so obvious? I neither said nor implied that.
Don't get me wrong, slavery is appaling. But anyone who's griping about being descended from slaves, even by one generation, is looking for special treatment for themselves and nothing more.
So, your great grandparents were taken from Africa against their will. That's horrific - for them. But now you want compensation and special treatment for what happened to them, but you don't want to go back to Africa (no matter how bad your situation in the USA)? Cry me a river.
I'm not buying it. Yes, we have a society of haves and have nots, of opportunity and deprivation, and yes, it's based on a large part on ancestry and skin tone. But you fix that by addressing the situation today, without making futile attempts to fix the past.
Re:More then money... (Score:2)
That is not, strictly speaking, true. Famous people, like Napoleon Bonaparte, used to snip off locks of their hair, to give to their loved ones, fans, well-wishers, and those who had done them favours. I know a number of locks of his hair have survived to the present day, because researchers were able to subject them to modern forensic tests to prove that he was the victim of chronic Arsenic poisoning.
Should the same marketplace economics be applied to medically useful living cells as to these souvenirs?
FWIW, IIRC, a number of people who had access to his body took the opportunity to snip additional locks of hair.
Not an isolated example (Score:2)
As in this case, the doctor didn't ask anyone's permission. However, this patient hadn't died. He was still alive and kicking, and when he found out he was angry. He sued for a cut. I'd like to know how the case was resolved.
Unlike the case of this woman, the biopsy was not taken in the fifties. It would have been the late seventies or early to mid eighties.
Re:More then money... (Score:2)
You should have a limited right to refuse to have the sample taken. You should have a limited right to demand that the sample be destroyed after the necessary diagnostic procedures have been carried out. (Limitations in both cases are conflicts with public health needs.)
But the government has a compelling interest to see that there is no market in selling bits and pieces of your body. Hence, you should not be able to demand money for cells derived from your body. Either you give them away freely, or you don't, but you can't charge for them.
This restriction is not to limit your rights, it is to protect you and everybody else from the economic pressures that they would otherwise be subject to. Because if you can sell parts of your body, companies will figure out how to compel you to financially and contractually, and you would have no choice at all anymore.
Re:Ridiculous (Score:2)
Get it? Each has a role. Each should be willing to give and not expecting to "get." Anybody agree?
GreyPoopon
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I'd love it... (Score:2)
The only thing I'd be worried about is people laughing at the state of my DNA in 10 years time...
Re:Sigh (Score:3)
I'll grant you that the analogy between use of tissue samples and slavery is a bit strained, but if you'd read the f'n article, you'd have seen that this particular filmmaker is coming at this from a lot of interesting angles, and is just as open about the relevance of her personal experiences to them. For example, she talks about the parallel questions of consent vs. furthering the public interest that arise in the making of documentaries, and also discusses her interest in exploring the 'mythic' side of the immortal cell line story.
Racism exists (even in Science!!) and by blowing off any discussion of its role in historical developments as 'axe-grinding' you open yourself up to the kind of accusation/questioning you've seen here. I don't think this sort of response is P.C. gone out of control, if I may pre-emptively respond to what I suspect your response to this post might be, but rather a reminder to keep the squelch turned up a little higher up on your own personal bullshit detector, lest you become (or appear) truly insensitive to the important and real concerns and insights of others.
Furthermore, as a trained 'historian of science' (I won't tell you which college in Boston it's from), I find your sanctification of the "science documentary" amusing. It's a seedy, complicated world, and while I enjoy the cut-and-dried 19th-century rivalry-driven PBS train-bridge-construction documentary genre as much as the next guy, I certainly also appreciate a historian who's not afraid to dig a little deeper.
Compensations... (Score:2)
Re:xcuse me? (Score:2)
The cells are sent around for free.
It's the technology around it that is the industry. If the family starts whining they'll just take cells from somebody else. It's not like this woman is very special. She just happened to be around when a scientist needed a cell culture. He could have taken them from anyone.
It's a multi-billion dollar industry because scientist work with these cells, and those scientist have to be paid (GNU's not University). That's where the mony is going. NOBODY is paying royalties to the scientist who happened to isolate these cells. You pay royalties to people to studied the cells (which costs money) and found an application with these cells.
tsk.
xcuse me? (Score:5)
They've taken cells out of the body to check for cancer, as they do with all cancer patients. Only difference is that they kept propagating the cells. WHY do we have to pay the family of this woman? Did they suffer in any way from this???
If I die of cancer, and scientist manage to use my cells after my death to study and cure other cancer patients, that is more compensation then I could hope for!
also: this had *nothing* to do with patenting genes! That line is just added to create some extra hysteria among the masses who just do not understand how all this biotecho goes.
Could her estate sue for the profits from this? (Score:3)
Re:The copyright holders would be her parents! (Score:3)
I disagree. Her parents may have provided the raw materials, however they did not create the work. No more than the person(s) who sold Picasso his paint and canvas created any of his work.
Her parents were the donors of the raw materials, however it was the RNA and DNA in her cells that did all of the work.
Compensating for cancer cells? (Score:3)
The whole idea of owning cells or bodyparts is very scary to me. Why have people become so obsessed by owning every thing from ideas to cells? It appears that if someone in any way can make money from someone else (often with the help of lawyers) they should. What is the world coming to?
Compensate? Anyone looked that word up in a dictionary. I don't hope my family need to be compensated for being relatives to me...
As for the cells themselves, I find that story much more interesting. Science studies into cells like these will provide us all with knowledge to cure diseases and even prolong life. This story have potential of both scientific information as well as ethical issues, way beyond if someone should be compensated economically, because they are a relative to someone.
Saggi
The copyright holders would be her parents! (Score:2)
The way copyright law works, someone who produces a work gets automatic protection of that work.
I believe the authors of this HeLa product would have to be her parents, and the date of creation of this product would be birthdate minus approximately 0.75 years. That would place the creation date at the turn of the century, that other century. That means that the pre-1928 copyright laws would apply, but the 1978 changes would allow the copyright to exist from the death of the creator or copyright holder plus 75 years. So if you know when her parents died, there could possibly be a copyright issue. But I don't think so.
Re:Ridiculous (Score:5)
Money is the reason grocer bothers stocking the shelves you buy from, and the reason the farmer bothers growing a thousand times more food than his family can eat. Money is the bond that holds ten thousand individuals in cooperation long enough to produce something as insanely complicated as a computer in quantities that allow you to own one. Money makes us turn a blind eye to race, religion, and nationality, to help more than the handful of people we know and like.
Money makes you a hundred times wealthier than you would be in a non-monetary system and keeps you from starving during local crop failures. Don't knock the lucre.
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