The Global Body Market: Altruism's Limits

Michele Goodwin

may 2013 · Cambridge University Press

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Black and gray markets for body parts are illegal, but also pioneering and inventive. Although this type of criminal activity requires dexterity and innovation, these markets thrive and flourish, sometimes in view of law. On the other hand, altruistic procurement is mired by low participation, which encourages black market transactions. Thousands of patients die each year waiting for an organ or bone marrow donation through the altruistic procurement system, so some turn to the dark side. This book offers a frank discussion of altruism in the global body market. It exposes how researchers exploit their patients' ignorance to harvest tissue samples, blood, and other biologics without consent, chronicles exploitation in the name of altruism, including the non-consensual use of children in dangerous clinical trials, and analyzes social and legal commitments to the value of altruism - offering an important critique of the vulnerability of altruism to corruption, coercion, pressure, and other negative externalities.

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Michele Goodwin is the Everett Fraser Professor in Law at the University of Minnesota. She holds joint appointments at the University of Minnesota Medical School and the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Prior to teaching law, Goodwin was a Gilder-Lehrman postdoctoral fellow at Yale University. She serves on the editorial boards of several journals, including Law and Social Inquiry and the Harvard/Stanford/Duke Journal of Law and the Biosciences. She is the author or editor of four books and more than sixty articles and book chapters. Her editorials and commentaries have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Forbes, Gene Watch, Christian Science Monitor, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Houston Chronicle, Chicago Sun Times and the Washington Post. She is a columnist for 'The Conversation' at the Chronicle of Higher Education.