Risk, Research, and Your Tissue

“Do you own your body parts? Do you have a right to control what is being done with your DNA or tissue if it is being used for biomedical research? Believe it or not, a great deal of uncertainty remains about the answers to these fundamental, and seemingly basic, legal questions. […] Scientists can now sequence an entire genome — all the genetic information in a cell — relatively quickly and cheaply. This means that every bit of tissue can be used to identify the genetic characteristics of the individual who provided the tissue, even if it was donated decades ago.”

Timothy Caulfield, Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy

“Risk, Research, and Your Tissue”, The Body in Question(s), 2014