Social justice and research using human biological material: A response to Mahomed, Nöthling-Slabbert and Pepper.

Abstract

Social justice in the context of research using human biological material is an important contemporary legal-ethical issue. A question at theheart of this issue is the following: Is it fair to expect a research participant (a person who participates in such research by, among others,making available biological material from his or her body) to participate on an altruistic basis, while the researchers and the investors inthe research can gain commercially from the research? In a recent article, Mahomed, Nöthling-Slabbert and Pepper proposed that researchparticipants should be entitled to share in the profits emanating from such research via a proposed new statutory right to the intellectualproperty emanating from such research. In order to stimulate debate on this important issue of social justice, this article responds to theposition of Mahomed et al. by focusing on two main points: Firstly, I contend that Mahomed et al. fail to make a convincing argumentin favour of shifting away from altruism; secondly, I caution against framing the debate in terms of the binary poles of altruism v. profitsharing,and suggest that should healthcare public policy ever move away from altruism, various non-monetary forms of benefit-sharing byresearch participants should be considered.