Property: Who Owns your Body ? Flashcards
Define property.
Property refers to a “bundle” of rights about what control you have over something. Simply possessing something does not confer property rights, property rights are about what society (the law) allows
Who owns your body and its parts while you’re alive?
– Limited property rights (we don’t have ownership but “a weaker package of limited property rights”*)
– Key issue of property is that you can transfer it to someone else. So, we have a weak property right in that we can donate an organ, but we don’t have a strong property right (we can’t sell it)
– Ethical issues arise around ownership of our bodies (e.g. surrogacy, selling of organs)
Who owns your body and its parts once you’ve died?
– “there is no property in a corpse”
Describe the Alder Hey Organ Scandal (I).
• Late 1990s: organ retention between 1988 – 1996
• In 2001: Royal Liverpool Children’s Inquiry report (sometimes “Redfern Inquiry”)
• 1000s of organs:
– 2080 organs, from 800 children, and 3575 aborted or stillborn foetuses
• Parents had consented to a post-mortem, but not to retention
• Wider Inquiry (CMO): 105,000 organs retained in hospitals and medical schools in England
• Professor Dick van Velzen (a specialist in cot death) “systematically ordered the unethical and illegal stripping of every organ from every child who had a post mortem” (Redfern report)
• Most (if not all) scientific papers based on experiments on these organs have NOT been retracted
State the legislation resulting from the Alder Hey Scandal.
Human Tissue Act 2004, “consolidates previous legislation and created the Human Tissue Authority to ‘regulate the removal, storage, use and disposal of human bodies, organs and tissue’ “
Describe the John Moore case, and state the key legal decisions.
• In 1976 John Moore was diagnosed with hairy cell leukemia
• Attended UCLA medical centre, and was under the care of David Golde
• 1976: Moore had his spleen removed
• 1976 – 1982: Moore returned to UCLA from Seattle several times to have blood and tissue samples taken
• Meanwhile,
– Golde had patented a cell line derived from Moore’s T-cells and products (could be used to stimulate immune system) and was working in collaboration with a pharma company
• Golde made ~ $15 million; pharma much more
• Moore found this all out
• Moore took them to court:
– Asserted a “continuing property interest” (“conversion”)
– Said he did not give informed consent and Golde had breached fiduciary duty
KEY LEGAL DECISIONS:
– No property interest (i.e. the removed spleen was not his property)
– Golde did breach fiduciary duty (not acting in patient’s benefit) and should have ensured Moore was fully informed (financial gain was conflict of interest)
Describe the Hagahai and T-cell case, and recognise the ethical concerns raised.
- Hagahai people in Papua New Guinea
- US researchers collected samples for research
- Created a T-cell line – applied for a patent
• Raises issues of: ‘biopiracy’, the need for prior informed consent, discussion of benefit- sharing
Outline the two pieces of human tissue legislation that apply in Scotland.
Tissue Act (Scotland) 2006
• Requires authorisation for use of organs, tissues and samples from the deceased
• Does not regulate use of tissues from the living – NHS Scotland accreditation scheme (2011), now under Healthcare Improvement Scotland
Human Tissue Act 2004 (England, Wales & N Ireland)
• Only one section applies in Scotland, section “which regulates DNA analysis”. There is an offence known as “DNA theft”
Outline why the Canavan gene patent controversy arose.
• Greenberg family provided material, time, organisation, finances. This led to the creation of a test for the detection of high risk of Canavan disease. This was initially free but then the researcher’s “new employer, Miami Children’s Hospital, patented the gene and started claiming royalties on the genetic test, forcing the Canavan Foundation to withdraw their free testing”.
2013 landmark case:
• US Supreme Court: “We hold that a naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent-eligible merely because it has been isolated”
• BRCA-1 and BRCA-2 (Myriad Genetics)
Identify an example of case which involved a market for the sale of body parts (living or deceased).
Alistair Cooke
• Criminal ring: bones for orthopaedics and dental implants
How could most of these ethical issues involving property (of organs, of DNA material) have been avoided ?
Through informed consent
