Department of EthicsWhose body is it anyway? Disputes over body tissue in a biotechnology age
Section snippets
The growth of interest in human tissue
Human tissue has always provided clues to health status. But the body in the biotechnology age is speaking in new ways. DNA analysis of waste tissue such as hair, blood, or saliva can reveal intimate and detailed information about a person. Genetic testing of tissue can indicate an individual's future health, information that may open beneficial therapeutic or remedial options, but also the possibility of employment or insurance discrimination.7 And, according to recent scientific claims, human
The scientific view of the body
In 1772, Robert Boyle expressed a view of the body that has characterised much of medical practice: “I think the physician is to look upon the patient's body as an engine that is out of order, but yet so constituted that, by his concurrence with … the parts of the automaton itself, it may be brought to a better state”.15 This mechanical view of the body as a set of parts that can be manipulated, analysed, and enhanced has reached the ultimate in genetics in which the very object manipulated,
The social meaning of the body
Just as the scientific view of the body serves certain functions for scientists and for society, so personal and social views of the body serve certain functions for individuals and their communities. A person's control over what is done to his or her body, or its parts, is important to the individual's psychological development and well-being. It is also a means to establish identity and convey values to others. But body tissue has social importance beyond the individual.23 Social conceptions
Scientists' responses
The gap between scientific and social perspectives on the body has been exacerbated by the often dismissive or defensive reactions of scientists. In 1912, the Strangeways Laboratory was created in Cambridge, England, as the first laboratory devoted to tissue culture. Collecting thousands of tissue specimens, the laboratory was unnoticed by the public until the mid-1930s when the work of Honor Fell on tissue cultivation attracted media attention. But Fell put off the press: “We are studying the
Integrated cultural meaning into policy
The potential contribution of unfettered research to scientific and medical progress has had significant influence on legal and policy decisions. For example, in Moore v Regents of the University of California,38 a patient sued his physician and a biotechnology company for using his biopsied tissue without his consent and transforming it into a patented commercial cell line, and the court sided with the interests of the defendants. Its reasoning was that giving the patient a property right to
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