Two recent cases raise the question: Should the body be considered a form of property? Patients generally do not share in the profits derived from the applications of research on their body parts and products. Nor is their consent for research required so long as the body part is unidentified and is removed in the course of treatment. A market in body parts and products would require consent to all categories of research and ensure that patients are protected from coercion (...) and given the chance to be paid fairly for their contributions. Such a market might force us to rethink our policies prohibiting organ sales. Donors, recipients, and society will benefit from a market in body parts so long as owners—and no one else—retain control over their bodies. (shrink)

We have a thriving biotechnology industry in the United States. There are over 1,450 biotechnology companies developing diagnostic and treatment technologies in medicine, creating more nutritional foods, and innovating new industrial processes. Yet this $28.5 billion sector of the economy is not without controversy. The “bio” in biotechnology comes from living, biological entities - people, plants, animals, and even bacteria. In the realm of biobanking, people are the source of the raw material for the discovery of genes for research, diagnosis, (...) and therapy, raising a host of issues about rights and responsibilities, fiduciary duties and societal obligations. (shrink)

We have a thriving biotechnology industry in the United States. There are over 1,450 biotechnology companies developing diagnostic and treatment technologies in medicine, creating more nutritional foods, and innovating new industrial processes. Yet this $28.5 billion sector of the economy is not without controversy. The “bio” in biotechnology comes from living, biological entities - people, plants, animals, and even bacteria. In the realm of biobanking, people are the source of the raw material for the discovery of genes for research, diagnosis, (...) and therapy, raising a host of issues about rights and responsibilities, fiduciary duties and societal obligations. (shrink)

New Jersey's Baby M case has thrust the issue of surrogate motherhood on state legislatures throughout the country. Like artificial insemination in the 1950s and 1960s, this new reproductive technology is evoking legislative responses ranging from horrified prohibition to cautious facilitation.

gamete donation, embryo donation, and surrogate motherhood. The OTA Report Infertility provides a range of policy choices for handling these reproductive procedures. The choice among these alternative regulations needs to be developed within the framework of the right to privacy of the U.S. Constitution, which provides support for an approach that allows the progenitors to control the uses made of their generative materials and to receive compensation for them, subject to laws which facilitate informed consent and attempt to assure quality. (...) Keywords: right to privacy, in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination, surrogate motherhood CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

On 5 July 1996 a sheep named Dolly was born in Scotland, the result of the transfer of the nucleus of an adult mammary tissue cell to the enucleated egg cell of an unrelated sheep, and gestation in a third, surrogate mother sheep. Although for the past ten years scientists have routinely cloned sheep and cows from embryo cells, this was the first cloning experiment that apparently succeeded using the nucleus of an adult cell.