Who Owns Your Cells?

A court decision in St. Louis raises questions about informed consent and cellular ownership according to report in this month's issue of Scientific American. This spring the University Washington in St. Louis sued prostate cancer specialist William Catalona for ownership of thousands of cell samples that he had collected over a long career of research. The court ruled in favor of the university despite an outcry from patients who said that their cell samples were intended only for Catalona.

"The integrity and utility of all biorepositories would be seriously threatened if [research participants] could move their samples from institution to institution any time they wanted," wrote Senior District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh.

This is a sticky subject. By siding with the notion that advancing science is more important than the rights of patients who should retain control over what happens to their own bodies the court may be undermining the spirit of informed consent.

JR Minkel writes:

To patient advocates, the policy implications of the latest ruling are more important than its legal correctness. "Maintaining public trust in research is critically important. What will affect medical research is if people think they're being taken advantage of," says Ellen Wright Clayton of Vanderbilt University, who testified on behalf of Catalona's patients. "I think we need a larger discussion about control over the use of stored tissue samples for research."