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Body Shopping: The Economy Fuelled by Flesh and Blood

It's been said that we are witnessing nothing less than a new Gold Rush, where the territory is the human body.

Human eggs are used in huge numbers for the stem cell technologies - over 2,000 in one recent case. Roughly one-fifth of all human genes have been patented by biotechnology companies. Women’s tissue is worth more than men's, but both sexes are vulnerable. The fact is, we don’t own our bodies in law.

Donna Dickenson is Emeritus Professor of Medical Ethics and Humanities at the University of London. Her career has been distinguished and varied, taking in activities including ethics committees, academia and authorship and in 2006 she was awarded the prestigious Spinoza Lens award, an International award awarded bi-annually to an illustrious thinker in ethics and society, for her contribution to the public debate on ethics. Most recently, Donna is the author of Body Shopping: The Economy Fuelled by Flesh and Blood, an important investigation into the increasing commercialisation of human body tissues. Described by The Lancet as "essential reading", Body Shopping is an important investigation into the increasing commercialisation of human body tissues.

On July 22nd, Donna joined us on Second Nature for a fascinating discussion on all of the above topics: please do listen to the podcast and if you would like to discuss the issues further, feel free to do so in our Second Life forum on Nature Network.

Additional Resources

• Donna Dickenson's Website
• Reviews of Body Shopping
• Philosophy Bites: Donna featuring in an episode of Philosophy Bites, a series of podcasts interviewing leading philosophers.