Henrietta Lacks’s family reaches settlement in extracted cell lawsuit

[Gospel]

I don't believe in the very idea of IP. I believe in the relative merit in attempting to do more out-of-distribution work, and so cast aspersions on copying for THAT reason, the reason of profiteering against the economy of scale with low quality knockoffs... But that is very different from accepting that anyone can own *facts of nature*.

I cast judgement against China not for making knockoffs, but for making cheap knockoffs.

The problem with knock-offs is that one company goes to a lot of work designing something and the knock-off company just copies that.

Which goes to show that just maybe it's not worth that much if it's so easy to reproduce.

 

[Toni]

I believe that a more accurate description of this is "A bunch of shark lawyers take a big bite out of some deep pocketed pharmaceutical companies. Some poor black folks helped and probably got a bit of the winnings of the litigation lottery."

Of course, the victims here are the giant pharmaceutical companies. Among the richest and most predatory of U.S. corporations, which puts them in rarified company.
I'm unable to work up a single tear of sympathy.
Tom

You're uninterested in the content of the case?

What is the content? Cells were taken without consent but from tissue already moved from her (as part of her treatment), but that might not have been an issue ethically then. The people who took the cells didn't sell it. Huge gains in science came from the cells, but it wasn't because the cells were a cheat code and just shoved into new treatments. The gains came from studies regarding the cells.

The one piece of content we don't know is if there was a pay out (or magnitude) by the pharma company.

So I worked for a major medical system which does a lot of research as well as clinical work and they are also my medycal care providers. I’ve had surgery and they ask via a consent form if they can use any tissues or blood collected for research. You can choose to say yes or no. The signed consent is mandatory today. It was not mandatory nor even considered during Mrs. Lacks treatment. Given the times, I feel pretty confident that Mrs. Lacks’ status as a black person and as a women would have made it even less likely that they would have considered it necessary to obtain consent.

This is particularly an issue in light of US history of enslaving black people and curtailing their civil rights and human rights. On direct point with regards to medicine would be the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male, a shameful part of medical history.

The US has a long and terrible history of not granting bodily autonomy to persons of color, especially black and indigenous peoples.

 

[TomC]

Given the times, I feel pretty confident that Mrs. Lacks’ status as a black person and as a women would have made it even less likely that they would have considered it necessary to obtain consent.

Do you think Ms Lacks was different in that regard than anyone else at the time? I don't.

I'd guess that if a wealthy male titan of industry had cancer surgery at the time, it wouldn't have occurred to anyone to ask permission for a tissue sample of diseased tissue.
Tom

 

[Toni]

Given the times, I feel pretty confident that Mrs. Lacks’ status as a black person and as a women would have made it even less likely that they would have considered it necessary to obtain consent.

Do you think Ms Lacks was different in that regard than anyone else at the time? I don't.

I'd guess that if a wealthy male titan of industry had cancer surgery at the time, it wouldn't have occurred to anyone to ask permission for a tissue sample of diseased tissue.
Tom

I think that she was poor, black and female and had cancer. I think she had very few rights compared with a wealthy white male.

 

[TomC]

Given the times, I feel pretty confident that Mrs. Lacks’ status as a black person and as a women would have made it even less likely that they would have considered it necessary to obtain consent.

Do you think Ms Lacks was different in that regard than anyone else at the time? I don't.

I'd guess that if a wealthy male titan of industry had cancer surgery at the time, it wouldn't have occurred to anyone to ask permission for a tissue sample of diseased tissue.
Tom

I think that she was poor, black and female and had cancer. I think she had very few rights compared with a wealthy white male.

Do you think any cancer patients were asked for consent concerning samples of diseased tissue in the early 50s?
Tom

 

[Politesse]

Tom, out of curiosity: do you believe that "it was technically legal at the time" is a robust ethical argument?

 

[TomC]

Tom, out of curiosity: do you believe that "it was technically legal at the time" is a robust ethical argument?

No.

Neither do I think "but it was legal when I did it" is ever a robust ethical argument. I don't consider the government a particularly good source of morality or ethical code.
Tom

 

[jab]

Had the family not been black they likely wouldn’t have stolen the cells from her in the first place. They possibly didn’t see her as enough of a person to require her consent. Black privilege, indeed.

My understanding is that back then (Lacks died in 1951) there was no requirement for consent to use cell lines and that it would not have been handled differently no matter her color. Do you know otherwise?

So there should be a good record of white women getting their cells take for research without their consent, yes? They should sue, too, it would seem.

or white men's cell lines

 

[jab]

The issue is that people made a large profit that could be directly traced to those particular cells.

The depiction of Ms Lack’s family as greedy taking advantage of their race to feed their greed is pure bigoted conjecture.

I would say "impure"

 

[Politesse]

Tom, out of curiosity: do you believe that "it was technically legal at the time" is a robust ethical argument?

No.

Neither do I think "but it was legal when I did it" is ever a robust ethical argument. I don't consider the government a particularly good source of morality or ethical code.
Tom

Well, good, neither do I. The track record isn't exactly stellar.

And even from a strictly legal perspective, "This action is explicitly legal" is very different from "I do not beleive that there is a law concerning this specific practice yet", especially if the matter hasn't been litigated yet. No one actually knows what would have happened had the Lacks case reached a higher court of law. While the judge might have agreed with you that the action was legal at the time, that cannot be a foregone conclusion. Indeed, trying to prevent just such a determination was no doubt a major motivation for Thermo-Fisher. If the judge did not rule in their favor, they might suddenly find themselves facing hundreds of similar lawsuits.

 

[jab]

In your quite selfish and bigoted opinion.

Ad hominems are not a substitute for arguments.

And I am still waiting for any citations backing up the claims about that location not following any standards or having been warned by the franchise to lower their temperature.

Not an ad hom. I'm addressing your bigoted opinion. Virtually every post you've made in this thread has been dripping with it.

dripping with it like Stella's thighs and crotch with hot coffee

 

[TomC]

Well, good, neither do I. The track record isn't exactly stellar.

You know what else was technically legal?
A bunch of lawyers sucking millions of dollars out of the issue. They're the ones who really won the litigation lottery. Sharing a bit with some dumb black people doesn't change that.

If the system had required researchers to get Henrietta Lacks' consent to investigate those cancer cells what do you suppose would have happened? They probably wouldn't have bothered, because they didn't know anything about them.
A bunch of valuable, lifesaving, research would simply not have happened because the Hela cells wouldn't have been around. They'd have been dumped like all cancerous waste tissue was, at the time.

Tom

 

[Toni]

Given the times, I feel pretty confident that Mrs. Lacks’ status as a black person and as a women would have made it even less likely that they would have considered it necessary to obtain consent.

Do you think Ms Lacks was different in that regard than anyone else at the time? I don't.

I'd guess that if a wealthy male titan of industry had cancer surgery at the time, it wouldn't have occurred to anyone to ask permission for a tissue sample of diseased tissue.
Tom

I think that she was poor, black and female and had cancer. I think she had very few rights compared with a wealthy white male.

Do you think any cancer patients were asked for consent concerning samples of diseased tissue in the early 50s?
Tom

I’ve stated repeatedly that I don’t think it was standard to as permission to use tissues taken as part of diagnosis and treatment. It is now. It always should have been but it wasn’t. As a poor, black woman with little education, I believe that Mrs. Lacks’ opinions were of even less consideration than a wealthy white male’s.

 

[TomC]

As a poor, black woman with little education, I believe that Mrs. Lacks’ opinions were of even less consideration than a wealthy white male’s.

Why do you think this, if you agree that back in the 50s nobody considered consent concerning such things.

It's not about the legality or ethical considerations. It just hadn't occurred to anyone that consent for a tissue sample mattered, from anyone. You keep talking about this like her socio-economic status was important, but I don't see any reason to think it was.

Until some lawyers dug into a big payday. Then it became important to put a poor black face or two on their winnings.
Tom

 

[Toni]

As a poor, black woman with little education, I believe that Mrs. Lacks’ opinions were of even less consideration than a wealthy white male’s.

Why do you think this, if you agree that back in the 50s nobody considered consent concerning such things.

It's not about the legality or ethical considerations. It just hadn't occurred to anyone that consent for a tissue sample mattered, from anyone. You keep talking about this like her socio-economic status was important, but I don't see any reason to think it was.

Until some lawyers dug into a big payday. Then it became important to put a poor black face or two on their winnings.
Tom

I’m certain that’s what you believe.

Family of Henrietta Lacks, whose cells were taken for research, settles with company that profited

The family of Henrietta Lacks is settling a lawsuit against a biotechnology company it accuses of improperly profiting from her cells.

www.pbs.org

Lacks' cells were harvested in 1951, when it was not illegal to so without a patient's permission. But lawyers for her family argued that Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., of Waltham, Massachusetts, continued to commercialize the results well after the origins of the HeLa cell line became well known. The company unjustly enriched itself off Lacks' cells, the family argued in their lawsuit, filed in 2021.

 

[laughing dog]

Well, good, neither do I. The track record isn't exactly stellar.

You know what else was technically legal?
A bunch of lawyers sucking millions of dollars out of the issue. They're the ones who really won the litigation lottery. Sharing a bit with some dumb black people doesn't change that.

This was a settlement . I am unaware the amount had been released. Would you please post a link to the amount?

On what basis do you claim the Lack family are “ dumb black people”?

If the system had required researchers to get Henrietta Lacks' consent to investigate those cancer cells what do you suppose would have happened? They probably wouldn't have bothered, because they didn't know anything about them.
A bunch of valuable, lifesaving, research would simply not have happened because the Hela cells wouldn't have been around. They'd have been dumped like all cancerous waste tissue was, at the time.

Tom

Let me get this straight - you are literally arguing that the very effort of having to ask permission to use the cells would have dissuaded them from asking for something they thought were valuable enough to use without asking.

 

[TomC]

- you are literally arguing that the very effort of having to ask permission to use the cells would have dissuaded them from asking for something they thought were valuable enough to use without asking.

In 1951, yeppers.
Nobody had any reason to think those cancerous cells were worth anything.

Give me a reason to believe differently.
Tom

 

[Politesse]

On what basis do you claim the Lack family are “ dumb black people”?

Not everyone has to exercise a lot of imagination to conceive of such an opinion.

 

[Politesse]

A bunch of lawyers sucking millions of dollars out of the issue.

You seem to be privy to some facts about this settlement that have not been commonly published, care to share?

But I don't see how it matters, anyway. Whether or not lawyers are personally greedy (most are, I'm sure) it has no bearing on the rightness of a particular legal decision. Thermo-Fisher was also employing attourneys to work on this case, and working for a major pharmaceutical is not only equally lucrative, but no doubt much more lucrative over time. It is fair to assume that every lawyer involved wished to be paid, unless someone was working pro bono. It's funny how you think everyone involved was "greedy" -- except for the only party that actually benefited from a theft as opposed to simply being paid for something they did or provided.

A bunch of valuable, lifesaving, research would simply not have happened because the Hela cells wouldn't have been around.

So we should ignore ethical obligations to human research subject in all cases, because doing so in some cases might result in some future epiphany or valuable research?

OR if you have been a victim of such a theft, you should be content with not getting paid for the sale of a section of your own body, even as someone else makes millions off of it? Thermo-Fisher is not a philanthropic organization, and I see no reason why it should be wrong for the Lacks to get a portion of the moneys generated by Thermo-Fisher's sale of their dead mother's bodily materials. Why should it be okay for a company to act out of pure greed, but evil for the human resources they are mining to be equally "greedy"? The Lacks family isn't requesting a research stoppage. Just compensation. Which the company has now agreed that they were in fact entitled to and settled the case accordingly.

 

[TomC]

On what basis do you claim the Lack family are “ dumb black people”?

Not everyone has to exercise a lot of imagination to conceive of such an opinion.

Especially not when the media depict them that way.
Works for the lawyers. Obviously.
And the people they need to support them.
Tom
It worked for the lawyers