John Moore Quotes

“Ultimately the judge threw Moore’s suit out of court, saying he had no case. Ironically, in his decision, the judge cited the HeLa cell line as a precedent for what happened with the Mo cell line. The fact that no one had sued over the growth or ownership of the HeLa cell line, he said, illustrated that patients didn’t mind when doctors took their cells and turned them into commercial products. The judge believed Moore was unusual in his objections. But in fact, he was simply the first to realize there was something potentially objectionable going on.”
― Rebecca Skloot

“many scientists have interfered with science in precisely the way courts always worried tissue donors might do. “It’s ironic,” she told me. “The Moore court’s concern was, if you give a person property rights in their tissues, it would slow down research because people might withhold access for money. But the Moore decision backfired—it just handed that commercial value to researchers.” According to Andrews and a dissenting California Supreme Court judge, the ruling didn’t prevent commercialization; it just took patients out of the equation and emboldened scientists to commodify tissues in increasing numbers. Andrews and many others have argued that this makes scientists less likely to share samples and results, which slows research; they also worry that it interferes with health-care delivery.”
― Rebecca Skloot