Who Owns Your Blood?
As a participant in a clinical trial, it would not be unusual for your blood to be drawn as part of the research protocol. Once a sample has been taken, to whom does it belong? You? The researcher conducting the clinical trial? The university, hospital or research institution hosting the clinical trial? Who cares?
In most cases, the blood sample would belong to the institution, to be used by the researcher as described in the Informed Consent document you were given. And, in fact, you probably wouldn't think twice about who owned the sample from that point on. If you were donating blood or an organ, for example, your donation would ultimately belong to the individual into whom the blood was transfused or the organ transplanted.
Now for some what ifs...
What if questions arose about the ownership of the blood, or saliva, or tissue, or urine sample collected from you as part of a clinical trial? What if the researcher transferred from the original institution hosting the clinical trial to another and wanted to claim ownership of the sample, but the original institution wanted to retain ownership and didn't want to allow the sample (your sample) to be transferred? Would you care then?
Or what if the sample turned out to be valuable? Suppose your blood contained a hormone that had never been seen before. Maybe the hormone controls the spread of cancer or reduces pain. Certainly the researcher and her institution would be keenly interested in studying the new hormone. And if turned out to be safe and effective, then the institution would license the hormone's use to a pharmaceutical company which would manufacture and market it in large batches. The institution and researcher would receive royalties from the company for the discovery - which wouldn't have been made if you hadn't volunteered your blood for the clinical trial in the first place! Have you started caring yet?
Even if you accept the fact that you agreed to donate your blood to the study and gave up your ownership of it at that time, what about the hormone found in your blood? If it was unique to you, would you feel some rights of ownership then?
Next time... a couple of real life examples of these circumstances.
-Joe
Related Topics: Technorati Tags: clinical trials, health and wellness
In most cases, the blood sample would belong to the institution, to be used by the researcher as described in the Informed Consent document you were given. And, in fact, you probably wouldn't think twice about who owned the sample from that point on. If you were donating blood or an organ, for example, your donation would ultimately belong to the individual into whom the blood was transfused or the organ transplanted.
Now for some what ifs...
What if questions arose about the ownership of the blood, or saliva, or tissue, or urine sample collected from you as part of a clinical trial? What if the researcher transferred from the original institution hosting the clinical trial to another and wanted to claim ownership of the sample, but the original institution wanted to retain ownership and didn't want to allow the sample (your sample) to be transferred? Would you care then?
Or what if the sample turned out to be valuable? Suppose your blood contained a hormone that had never been seen before. Maybe the hormone controls the spread of cancer or reduces pain. Certainly the researcher and her institution would be keenly interested in studying the new hormone. And if turned out to be safe and effective, then the institution would license the hormone's use to a pharmaceutical company which would manufacture and market it in large batches. The institution and researcher would receive royalties from the company for the discovery - which wouldn't have been made if you hadn't volunteered your blood for the clinical trial in the first place! Have you started caring yet?
Even if you accept the fact that you agreed to donate your blood to the study and gave up your ownership of it at that time, what about the hormone found in your blood? If it was unique to you, would you feel some rights of ownership then?
Next time... a couple of real life examples of these circumstances.
-Joe
Related Topics: Technorati Tags: clinical trials, health and wellness
3 Comments:
I feel that if the sample contained a hormone that a research company, received royalities, then a percentage should go to the donor.
I agree with the above poster - the research company SHOULD see that the donor recieve a percentage of the royalities! But the reality would probably be, that they would not do that.
In clinical trials they take small vials of blood. If you had
a special hormone in your blood would they want to take a lot more (pint)? If so at this point would they have an obligation to tell you why they need it?
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