A piece in Science on July 6 discussed the case of Henrietta Lacks (the patient HeLa cells are derived from) and whether people who donate tissue for research purposes should receive compensation.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6090/37
This week, several letters were also published in Science that argue for or against a compensation scheme. The main issues are should compensation be given? how much? would royalties be included? would type of tissue matter? would the number of donors decrease? would compensation induce more people to consent?
Human tissue is an invaluable part of research. Those tissues that are collected are "waste" or dangerous (ex tumours). As someone that will soon rely on human tissue samples, I am in favour of whatever will send tissue my way. However, I don't feel comfortable if people aren't really ok with their tissue being used in research but are donating because they are in need of the money.
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