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Law, Medicine and Healthcare Law, Medicine and Healthcare

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An Institutional Policy on the Right to Benefit from the Commercialization of Human Biological Material

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2021

Ernest D. Prentice ,
John C. Wiltse ,
John G. Sharp  and
Dean L. Antonson
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Extract

The marriage of academic research laboratories to the biotechnology industry has raised some very complex ethical and legal issues regarding commercialization of human body parts, products and derivatives thereof. Current statutes prohibit the sale of one's body or bodily organs although people may legally sell their blood or semen and are generally encouraged to donate certain body parts for transplantation or research both in life and death. No existing legislation, however, clearly addresses ownership rights with respect to human cells and tissues used in research, Commercialization of human biological material, either by the donor or by the recipient, e.g., researcher and/ or pharmaceutical company, is an uncharted area of the law.

The question of proprietary rights to one's own cells and tissues did not arise until the biotechnology industry rapidly expanded in the 1980s. Now, human organs, tissues and cells are used in research that may lead to the development of products with tremendous commercial value.

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Article
Information
Law, Medicine and Healthcare , Volume 18 , Issue 1-2 , Summer 1990 , pp. 162 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © 1990 American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics

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