Back to Journals » Journal of Blood Medicine » Volume 3
Ethical and legal considerations regarding the ownership and commercial use of human biological materials and their derivatives
Authors Petrini C
Received 19 July 2012
Accepted for publication 23 August 2012
Published 7 September 2012 Volume 2012:3 Pages 87—96
DOI https://doi.org/10.2147/JBM.S36134
Checked for plagiarism Yes
Review by Single anonymous peer review
Peer reviewer comments 6
Carlo Petrini
Italian National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy
Abstract: This article considers some of the ethical and legal issues relating to the ownership and use – including for commercial purposes – of biological material and products derived from humans. The discussion is divided into three parts: after first examining the general notion of ownership, it moves to the particular case of possible commercial use, and finally reflects on the case in point in the light of the preceding considerations. Units of cord blood donated altruistically for transplantation and which are found unsuitable for storage and transplantation, or which become unsuitable while stored in biobanks, are taken as an example. These cord-blood units can be discarded together with other biological waste, or they can be used for research or the development of blood-derived products such as platelet gel. Several ethical questions (eg, informed consent, property, distribution of profits, and others) arise from these circumstances. In this regard, some criteria and limits to use are proposed.
Keywords: bioethics, biological specimen banks, cord-blood stem cell transplantation, ethics, informed consent, legislation
Corrigendum for this paper has been published
© 2012 The Author(s). This work is published and licensed by Dove Medical Press Limited. The full terms of this license are available at https://www.dovepress.com/terms.php and incorporate the Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License. By accessing the work you hereby accept the Terms. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. For permission for commercial use of this work, please see paragraphs 4.2 and 5 of our Terms.