Question

Dr. McKusick directed Susan Hsu to contact Henrietta's children for blood samples to further HeLa research; neither McKusick nor Hsu tried to get informed consent for this research. Discuss whether or not you think this request was ethical. Further, think about John Moore and the patent that had been filed without his consent on his cells called “Mo” (page 201). What do you think about the Supreme Court of California ruling that states when tissues are removed from your body, with or without your consent, any claim you might have had to owning them vanishes?

Answer 1

In a research whether it is experimental or non experimental ,the principal investigator has ethical duty to take inormed consent from the subjects before taking sample in the form blood or other information etc. Not taking informed consent in a research is a unethical act and the research is not valid .

Every individual is unique and ideal . He or she is has his ow cells ,tissues ,organs . Removal of tissues from your body without taking informed consent is an illegal and unethical practice which can be for research purposes ,for money making , black-marketing etc . In today's world ,people are afraid to go for health check ups because of the increase in number of cases of organ theft without being noticed by patient itself . It's done so finely that no one gets to know until the body starts to show symptoms due to deficiency of the vital organs .

The supreme court or the judiciary should take strict actions to prevent this illegal practice in the form of good inspection , imposing lifetime jail and huge amount of charges on them that they won't repeat this in their life