Many thanks again to Muireann Quigley for her very informative talk last night. We were treated to some of the defining stories around body-part ownership and  patenting, from Henrietta Lacks’ incredible “HeLa” cells, to the case of Charles Byrne’s giant skeleton, to the Greenberg / Canavan Disease case among the Ashkenazi Jewish community. She outlined the costs of body parts on the open market and explained how the law is able to assign property rights to body parts. From her talk it is evident that rights of ownership are not well established. It was a fascinating talk, and anybody going to her talk in Dublin tonight are in for a treat.

In the meeting we also spoke about a case of cholesterol denial in West Cork, and I posted up some links to references that may be of use when investigating strange medical claims. Here are the references again.

Science Based Medicine : http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/

The Skeptic’s Dictionary : http://www.skepdic.com/

Respectful Insolence : http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/

Bad Science : http://www.badscience.net/

The Quackometer : http://www.quackometer.net/

DC’s Improbable Science : http://www.dcscience.net/

Finally, we discussed the case of Sanal Edamaruku in India, where his investigations into a Catholic miracle have lead him to be accused of blasphemy. There is a petition open to have his case thrown out.

Our next meeting is scheduled for July 14th in Blackrock Castle. More details soon.