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Henrietta Lacks estate sues company using her 'stolen' cells
abc news ^

Posted on 10/04/2021 6:39:31 PM PDT by algore

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- The estate of Henrietta Lacks sued a biotechnology company on Monday, accusing it of selling cells that doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital took from the Black woman in 1951 without her knowledge or consent as part of “a racially unjust medical system."

Tissue taken from the woman's tumor before she died of cervical cancer became the first human cells to be successfully cloned. Reproduced infinitely ever since, HeLa cells have become a cornerstone of modern medicine, enabling countless scientific and medical innovations, including the development of the polio vaccine, genetic mapping and even COVID-19 vaccines.

Lacks’ cells were harvested and developed long before the advent of consent procedures used in medicine and scientific research today, but lawyers for her family say Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., of Waltham, Massachusetts, has continued to commercialize the results well after the origins of the HeLa cell line became well known.

“It is outrageous that this company would think that they have intellectual rights property to their grandmother’s cells. Why is it they have intellectual rights to her cells and can benefit billions of dollars when her family, her flesh and blood, her Black children, get nothing?” one of the family's attorneys, Ben Crump, said Monday at a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Baltimore.

Johns Hopkins said it never sold or profited from the cell lines, but many companies have patented ways of using them. Crump said these distributors have made billions from the genetic material “stolen” from Lacks' body.

Another family attorney, Christopher Seeger, hinted at related claims against other companies.

Thermo Fisher Scientific "shouldn’t feel too alone because they’re going to have a lot of company soon,” Seeger said.

(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bencrump; christopherseeger; henriettalacks; law; lawyer
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To: ifinnegan

“Bunch of crap.”

I tend to agree. if we had a copyright law that was as the founders intended, there would not be a reason for “an estate” to last this long.

Imagine if things that Should be Public Domain were.


21 posted on 10/04/2021 7:14:22 PM PDT by algore ( )
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To: ClearCase_guy

If only the medicine guys had record label type lawyers. They could have paid her $30 and owned the rights forever.


22 posted on 10/04/2021 7:14:53 PM PDT by monkeyshine (live and let live is dead)
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To: ifinnegan
"You’re an ignoramus."

Lobbing an unprovoked insult at me for simply saying the family deserves compensation says way more about you than it does me.

Some people might even say that you are a touchy bastard but I will not. I forgive all bastards and would never call a bastard a bastard.

You are welcome! 😎

23 posted on 10/04/2021 7:15:29 PM PDT by WMarshal ("Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither.")
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To: monkeyshine
'If only the medicine guys had record label type lawyers.'

Oh, they probably do, now. But they didn't have, back then.
24 posted on 10/04/2021 7:19:49 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: monkeyshine

Intellectual Property laws are a tough area. I have no idea how to do it “right” but from what I see, the artists don’t get much, and the public has to pay an arm and a leg for stuff produced long, long ago. The corporations rake in all the money while screwing everybody else, and they act like “without us, there would be no art”. Personally, I think that’s a crock. But, I have no idea how to do it “right”.


25 posted on 10/04/2021 7:24:07 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (China is like the Third Reich. We are Mussolini's Italy. A weaker, Jr partner, good at losing wars.)
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To: algore

I’ve even used HeLa cells to test one of my products.

Still have stock in the company.

$7.43 worth of stock...


26 posted on 10/04/2021 7:24:41 PM PDT by null and void (As usual, the GOP was either totally unprepared for the onslaught or complicit in the tyranny)
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To: RaceBannon
In this case, there should have been payouts to the immediate family; sons, daughters.

and this late?
TONS of payouts to sons, daughters.

and if they’re dead, grandsons and daughters.

but, only once.

Why only once?

Would you let them vote only once???

27 posted on 10/04/2021 7:26:57 PM PDT by null and void (As usual, the GOP was either totally unprepared for the onslaught or complicit in the tyranny)
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To: algore

How many people have been harmed by these cells? Is the family prepared to take responsibility for all the liabilities?


28 posted on 10/04/2021 7:41:50 PM PDT by Born to Conserve
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To: algore

How many people have been harmed by these cells? Is the family prepared to take responsibility for all the liabilities?


29 posted on 10/04/2021 7:42:05 PM PDT by Born to Conserve
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To: algore

Uh, the article is wrong. I read the book. the cells are immortal. That’s why they are used. You can clone any cell, and the cell line will die out, just like you will.....In her cells, the cellular machinery has been modified (by mutation) to make her cells immortal, they can reproduce forever, and the DNA does now “wear out”.

Interestingly, this is proof positive that mankind WAS once immortal, and will be again.


30 posted on 10/04/2021 7:42:58 PM PDT by BereanBrain
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To: BereanBrain

I’m not really interested in my flesh being immortal.

My soul, yes; and I think God already arranged for that.


31 posted on 10/04/2021 7:52:35 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: Born to Conserve

What harm do you suspect has been done?


32 posted on 10/04/2021 7:53:55 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: WMarshal

Nothing rightful about it. Shakedown pure and simple. Next you’ll be saying that slavery reparations are rightful.


33 posted on 10/04/2021 8:18:20 PM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy - EVs a solution for which there is no problem)
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To: gubamyster

It’s a good read. Those cells have done a lot of good work in medical research.


34 posted on 10/04/2021 8:22:48 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: WMarshal

Unprovoked? You advocate communist mafia behavior. AOC level crap in saying:

“The family will likely get their money and rightfully so.”


35 posted on 10/04/2021 8:40:25 PM PDT by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: algore

It’s hard to believe anyone here buys this utter grift and strong arm grab with race-baiting BLM crap used in support. .

It’s stuff communists or mafia do.

HeLa cells were developed and invented, created, cultivated over long time with determination, creativity, perseverance and hard work from garbage - something that otherwise would be incinerated 70 years ago.

Leftists always steal and destroy. That’s all they can do.


36 posted on 10/04/2021 8:57:00 PM PDT by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: Jamestown1630

Read your Bible. Most Christians don’t know about the Resurrection of the dead and the 1000 year reign and the new earth.

We will not be floating spirits with a harp. We will be perfected in the flesh eventually and the soul and the spirit.

Did not Jesus show he has a body that could be touched and did he not eat?


37 posted on 10/05/2021 7:21:29 PM PDT by BereanBrain
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To: BereanBrain

I’m a philosophical Christian; but I don’t take everything in the NT literally.

If you do, I have no problem with how you believe.


38 posted on 10/05/2021 7:25:09 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: Jamestown1630

John 11

23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

so, if Martha was WRONG, Jesus would have corrected her. My point is, there is a physical resurrection at/after the last of days.

BTW, the Sadducees denied the resurrection of the last days, but the Pharisees did not. So, similar to today. Jesus confirmed the Sadducees’ belief in a physical resurrection (i.e. we will have bodies)


39 posted on 10/06/2021 6:55:51 AM PDT by BereanBrain
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