HeLa Cases Prompt More Thinking on Ethics

The descendants of Henrietta Lacks recently settled their lawsuit with Thermo Fisher Scientific and filed another one against Ultragenyx regarding its use of Lacks's cells, dubbed HeLa cells, for scientific and medical use without her permission. Legal experts say the settlement should prompt researchers to think about how their ethics and biopharmaceutical companies to be mindful of how they acquire biospecimens to help prevent similar lawsuits in the future.