Health Law and Policy Commons^™

Rules For Donations To Tissue Banks: What Next?, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Michael Crichton's Next is a fictional creation of multiple catastrophes emanating from the real-life case of John Moore, in which the California Supreme Court ruled in 1990 that Moore did not own his cells after they were removed from his body. As human tissue has become commercially useful, and as tissue banks storing and providing samples for research have flourished, the question of who owns the tissue has become more vital. Next got mixed reviews, but even many scientists, such as Michael Goldman, who reviewed the book in Nature, agree with Crichton that it is imperative that we “establish clear …