***Donna Dickenson: Body Shopping - The Economy Fuelled by Flesh and Blood

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In case you haven't seen it yet....===========http://www.global-sisterhood-network.org/content/view/2159/59/Donna Dickenson: Body Shopping - The Economy Fuelled by Flesh and Blood  By   Donna Dickenson Body Shopping exposes the lucrative new economy that has sprung up to take advantage of a single commodity: your bodyScroll down for Publisher's notes, Reviews and Donna's op-ed on the subject from The Sunday Times, April 2008: Unseen rise of 'body shopping' Also by the same author:     Scroll Down for Publisher's notes Advances in modern technology are turning our tissues, genes, and organs into ‘the currency of the future’. From beauty junkies to the international organ trade, Donna Dickenson reveals the ingenious ways in which body parts are converted into commodities. The true scale is immense: almost one in five human genes is the subject of a patent, and everything is fair game for profit-makers­from individual eggs to the genetic profile of an entire population. This gripping book is essential reading for anyone concerned with the ownership and commercial use of our bodies and those of our loved ones. Drawing on over 20 years of experience, Dickenson scrutinizes the evolving legal position, the historical long view, and the latest biomedical research, and suggests new strategies to bring the biotechnology industry to heel. Donna Dickenson is the first woman recipient of the International Spinoza Lens award for her contribution to public debate on ethics. She is Professor Emerita of Medical Ethics and Humanities at the University of London, and former John Ferguson Professor of Global Ethics at the University of Birmingham, UK. www.donnadickenson.net "This is a horrifying book. It isn't news that human tissue and organs are bought and sold, but it is horrifying to learn the extent, the heartlessness and sometimes the ghoulishness of this international trade." Christopher Hart, The Sunday Times "Body Shopping is ambitious and thoughtful … This book could not be more timely … a chilling account of the trade in human body parts … If there is any doubt over whether the human body is a global commodity, Dickenson ably puts it to rest." The New Scientist "Dickenson’s book is a scandal a page; horror writers in a search of a plot would do well to consult it … It is also a thoughtful, intelligent, highly readable work written by someone with impeccable credentials... Gently, thoroughly and reasonably calmly, she guides us through a new world of horrific possibilities..." Fay Weldon, Financial Times "Donna Dickenson's 'Body Shopping' is an alarming and illuminating book. No-one with any interest at all in medicine and society and how they interact should miss this." Philip Pullman "For those of us who believe that the world would be a better place if our bodies’ weren’t strip mined for cash, Dickenson is a voice of wit, wisdom and hope. Body Shopping digs deep in its exploration of the true value of the human body." Francoise Baylis, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Bioethics and Philosophy at Dalhousie University. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  2008, Vol. 372 July 12 2008Perspectives, Book In BriefBody parts for saleBy Ian Anderson Oneworld Publications, 2008. ISBN 978-1-85168-591-2. Pp 320. £16·99.“Who owns your body?” A simple question but the answer is more complex and disturbing than one would imagine. In this alarming exposé, bioethicist Donna Dickenson aims to enlighten her readers about the global trafficking of human tissue and genetic material in the world of biotechnology. Body Shopping: The Economy Fuelled by Flesh and Blood explores such trading across the whole cycle of life, from before birth embryonic stem cells through to the ransacking of corpses in crematoriums. Individual cases, such as that of John Moore who developed a rare leukaemia, are used to exemplify how, once separated from the body, tissues and genetic material can rapidly become “products” in a multimillion dollar business, over which the “donor” has no influence. Refreshingly, Dickenson does not confine herself to Anglo-American culture and includes cases from countries such as France and Tonga, where governments have bucked the biotrade status quo and vetoed genetic patenting and, in France's case, banned the selling of human eggs. Dickenson successfully marries anecdote with scientific and legal papers to make her points clearly and effectively. Although emotive language and supposition are, at times, used to persuade readers to her viewpoint, much of this is unnecessary since the barbaric truths speak for themselves. Body Shopping is essential reading for those who work in the medical profession. I defy anyone to read this book without being just a little shocked. ^^^^^^^^^  by  Donna Dickenson Birkbeck College, University of London (ISBN-13: 9780521867924) Published April 2007 £60.00 New developments in biotechnology radically alter our relationship with our bodies. Body tissues can now be used for commercial purposes, while external objects, such as pacemakers, can become part of the body. Property in the Body: Feminist Perspectives transcends the everyday responses to such developments, suggesting that what we most fear is the feminisation of the body. We fear our bodies are becoming objects of property, turning us into things rather than persons. This book evaluates how well-grounded this fear is, and suggests innovative models of regulating what has been called 'the new Gold Rush' in human tissue. This is an up-to-date and wide-ranging synthesis of market developments in body tissue, bringing together bioethics, feminist theory and lessons from countries that have resisted commercialisation of the body, in a theoretically sophisticated and practically significant approach. • Allows reader to make sense of headline stories about stem cells and other developments in biomedicine • Offers reader a clear argument about why we worry about the body becoming a mere commodity and what we can do to prevent it • Avoids both sole emphasis on US situation and easy answers to difficult questions about how we should handle rapid change in the new biotechnologies Contents Acknowledgements; Preface; 1. Do we all have 'feminised' bodies now?; 2. Property, objectification and commodification; 3. The Lady Vanishes: what's missing from the stem cell debate; 4. Umbilical cord blood banks: seizing surplus value; 5. The gender politics of genetic patenting; 6. Biobanks: consent, commercialisation and charitable trusts; 7. The new French resistance: commodification rejected?; 8. Tonga, the genetic commons and No Man's Land; 9. Afterword; Bibliography; Index. Reviews 'Donna Dickenson has done a brilliant job of bringing sophisticated philosophical analysis together with feminist critique to help us understand the meaning of the 'body as property' in the 21st century. Prof. Dickenson's book is a gem, of both brilliance and clarity, rare in its ability to traverse the worlds of feminist theory, philosophy, ethics, and cultural anthropology in search of deeper understandings of the libratory as well as exploitative potential of the concept of the 'body as property.' This work of nuance and complexity can help us understand the challenges modern biotechnologies bring to the world of human relationships - in stem cell research, umbilical cord blood banks, genetic patenting, the 'harvesting' of eggs, and trafficking in kidneys. Dickenson literally travels the world to such distant places as Tonga to bring us a rethinking of the tired old dichotomies which have dominated discussions of bodily property. Her book is a stellar example of how feminist theorizing can illuminate universal questions about the human condition - for both men and women.' Cynthia Daniels, Associate Professor, Political Science, Dept. Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 'Donna Dickenson has produced an incisive feminist critique of the biotechnology industries and the limits of conventional bioethics. She tackles the most pressing of bioethical issues - property in the body - and critically examines the assumptions which permit medical researchers to take human tissues without recompense or recognition, particularly from female donors. Her nuanced analysis of property in the body as a complex social relation, able to be configured in different ways, provides a coherent alternative approach to tissue regulation that better protects donors' interests and status. This book is essential reading for bioethicists, policy makers, medical researchers, tissue donors and anyone interested in the social and philosophical questions raised by the contemporary life sciences.' Catherine Waldby, author of Tissue Economies: Blood, Organs and Cell Lines in Late Capitalism 'Describing reproductive commodification as nothing less than the 'new enclosures' of the genetic commons, Dickenson has taken her argument from Property, Women and Politics and in a bold, new and entirely original elaboration, set out a brilliant argument about the privatisation of human tissue. This is not just a book for specialists in bioethics. Anyone interested in the future of reproduction needs to understand the issues that are treated here with such care and sophistication.' Professor Mary Fainsod Katzenstein, Department of Government, and the Program in Feminist, Gender and Sexual Studies, Cornell University ^^^^^^^^^^^^^  London ~~ April 20, 2008 Unseen rise of ‘body shopping’Donna Dickenson In one corner, wearing black trunks and a red biretta: Cardinal Keith O’Brien, head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, who alleged in an Easter sermon that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill - now before parliament - would allow “government-supported experiments of Frankenstein proportions”. In the other, wearing white trunks and a silver halo: Robert Winston, the scientists’ champion, who has accused Cardinal O’Brien of lying. If this sounds like a caricature, that’s because it is - but it’s no more of a parody than the way in which serious ethical debate about the bill has descended into a vituperative slanging match. This new bill represents the first revision of the original Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, which won widespread international admiration for its balanced regulation of new reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilisation. Scientific developments since then need to be addressed by the law - and the one causing the most controversy is “human admixed embryos” (where human genetic material is inserted into a hollowed-out animal egg for research purposes). This week, leading scientists and religious representatives will meet in London to hear each other out and try to overcome the black-and-white divide that has dominated debate. Not before time: the “God versus science” cliche has become a dangerous distraction. As a (secular) bioethicist who also sits on ethics committees, I find it supremely unhelpful to be labelled either a luddite or a God-botherer when I pose ethical questions about scientific developments. It’s not just the technology that’s changed since the 1980s; it’s also the economic environment in which science and medicine have to operate. We are living in an age when human organs, genes, eggs and other body parts are fast becoming commodities bought and sold on international markets: what I call “body shopping”. Our law lags behind: once tissue is taken from your body, it doesn’t legally belong to you. Instead, our common law views it as “no one’s thing”, or mere waste. And that’s convenient for - to take one example - the private umbilical-cord blood banks (a burgeoning new sector) which charge expectant mothers a fee of up to £1,600 for banking blood taken during the last stage of labour. The Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists advise against taking cord blood, because it diverts delivery-room staff’s attention at a crucial moment. However, the activities of the cord blood banks aren’t covered by the new bill. So here’s just one new, highly commercialised reproductive technology that needs scrutiny, but which has been lost from view in the brouhaha about human admixed embryos. The new commercialised medical environment also means that researchers can now compete internationally for glittering financial prizes, particularly in the area of stem-cell research. Vast sums are being poured into private-public collaborations across the globe. Because nobody talks about the financial realities behind modern medical research, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), can sometimes be placed in an awkward position. Research teams, under pressure from their universities and international rivals, will sometimes ask the authority to allow new procedures that haven’t been fully certified as safe. And the HFEA sometimes says yes. During a 2006-7 consultation on whether women should be allowed to donate eggs for stem-cell research - a risky procedure - the authority allowed one research team to recruit women to give eggs halfway through the consultation. Even some American commentators are beginning to remark pityingly that our HFEA is no longer the model that their country should emulate. And many Europeans, rightly or wrongly, already regard the UK as having few moral scruples when it comes to the biotech industry. By taking an uncritical approach to the market developments that this new bill should be regulating, some secularists are playing straight into the hands of a greater potential enemy to scientific progress than God. I’m referring to the increasingly powerful forces of commercialisation. Not that I have anything against, for example, the private sponsorship of medical research. However, commercial biotechnology companies can - and do - impede research by charging large sums for access to new developments. Let’s take another example: the drug firms who enforce restrictive patents on genetic material necessary for scientific research and medical therapy. A monopoly patent by Genentech, for the cancer drug Herceptin and the HER2 gene on which it operates, has driven the price of the drug so high that its use in the NHS has had to be restricted. Now that one in five human genes is patented, there are plenty of other companies ready to try the same tactic to make large sums out of other diagnostic tests. We need to take a more critical attitude. Take the case for human admixed embryos, which are supposed to lead to breakthroughs in stem-cell research. The Conservative MP Mark Pritchard has warned that “there has been no recorded case of a single patient who has been cured of any disease using human embryonic stem cells - a small detail omitted by the large biotech corporations that stand to make millions from the government’s proposals”. Clearly, nobody was listening. Earlier this month, a team in Newcastle announced that it had had preliminary success in growing an animal-human admixed embryo to the 32-cell stage. However, some scientists quietly pointed out that the Newcastle findings hadn’t gone through the usual peer-review process. Good science can’t be rushed, and the commercialisation of biotechnology needs proper examination. The problem is that parliament is too busy arguing about God to pay much attention. Donna Dickenson is emeritus professor of medical ethics and humanities at Birkbeck, London. Her book, Body Shopping, is published on April 24 by Oneworld =====In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.