This is part one of an Article by Bruce Rushton recently published in the Riverfront Times concerning a Missouri Federal District Court case, in which we are participating, concerning the novel issue of who owns tissue and serum samples donated by grateful patients to a particular surgeon for his research . [email protected]
Dr. William J. Catalona's cancer-screening test sparks debate in the medical community
The Catalona Collection sounds like a line of designer clothes, or perhaps an assortment of fine fragrances. Maybe a stash of Spanish paintings.
It is anything but.
The Catalona Collection is a repository of blood and tissue samples taken from some 10,000 prostate-cancer patients and their relatives. The specimens sit in a dozen-plus freezers at the Washington University School of Medicine, where administrators have a less romantic name for one of the largest such banks in the world. They call it the GU (short for genito-urinary) Biorepository. It may hold the key to a cure, or at least improved treatment, for a disease that's the second-biggest cause of cancer deaths in U.S. men. As such, it may be worth millions of dollars. And the university wants to keep it.
Dr. William J. Catalona, the collection's former curator, says the university has no right to the samples he began gathering in the 1980s. After 26 years in St. Louis, Catalona left Washington University in February, convinced that he was no longer wanted by the institution that once held him up as a genius. He's now director of the clinical prostate cancer program at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern University, just outside Chicago. He says the proper name for the samples is the Catalona Collection, and he wants them back.
Washington University sued Catalona in August, asking a federal judge to settle the ownership question. In October, Catalona countersued, requesting a jury trial. Not only do donors want him to have their tissues, the doctor says, but the law requires it. Besides hiring some of the best legal talent in St. Louis, both sides have brought in attorneys from outside Missouri. That this has turned into a big-ass case is no exaggeration.
Behind the bickering are thousands of men who've undergone surgery and untold thousands yet to be diagnosed whose fates may hinge on who wins this court battle. The case is the latest in a series of disputes throughout the United States over ownership of human body parts used in research, and the ramifications could be felt in laboratories across the nation.
"I think the issue is: Who owns your DNA?" says Gregory Piche (pronounced pee-SHAY), one of Catalona's lawyers. He accuses Washington University of less-than-noble motives.
"Our belief is it's all about money," Piche says.
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