[tialaramex]

Then you'd certainly be surprised that today making HeLa without Lacks' prior authorisation would be illegal. You'd need consent from the patient before taking these samples for any purpose other than directly treating them, if you've got samples you took for treatment and now you wish you could use them for another purpose either you need to go back and ask for that or too bad. I've signed off on paperwork for this numerous times this century because they have samples from my cancer which are doubtless much less useful than HeLa but might be valuable to someone so why not ask.

Lacks' estate have obtained settlements (with undisclosed terms) from several companies which profit off HeLa. We could choose to imagine the terms were just enough to pay lawyer fees, but equally they could be substantial. So apparently the lawyers for major pharma firms either don't believe you that no moral rights were violated or they believe jurors wouldn't believe you on this.

Now, as I said, for Lenna she was compensated by Playboy, the rights rest with the magazine publisher, and they've apparently felt that suing scientists for popularizing an image of one of their models wasn't commercially sensible. But morally it does still seem like a problem, that's not what she was consenting to.

[neuroticnews25]

I've read more about the case and yeah, profiting out of a cell line from a tissue literally stolen with a scalpel doesn't seem ok, because stealing a part of someone's body is not ok in the first place. Even though it was apparently legal at the time.

> that's not what she was consenting to

It's not clear that we're obliged to care - what if I don't consent to having this comment argued against, or read? What about Virgil's Aeneid? I think where consent is clearly applicable is in cases regarding body autonomy and personal property, and it gets murky with abstract concepts like "likeness".