"Profits from Merck’s rubella vaccine represent a big slice of the billions of dollars that have been made from products that have involved the use of WI-38. Among the other companies that have made money from WI-38 are Barr Laboratories (now part of Teva Pharmaceuticals, based in Petach Tikva, Israel), which today makes the adenovirus vaccine given to all US military recruits, and Sigma Aldrich in St Louis, Missouri, which charges $424 in the United States for a vial of the cells. Legal experts say it is unlikely that the parents of the fetus, or their heirs, would have any legal grounds to demand compensation for tissue collected over 50 years ago. At the time that WI-38 was derived, use of tissue without consent was routine in the United States, as it was in Sweden. Under current rules, researchers supported by US government grants are free to make use of surgically removed tissue — including aborted tissue — that has been stripped of its identifiers, without consent. However, some states have stricter rules. But, says Charo, “if we continue to debate it entirely in legal terms, it feels like we’re missing the emotional centre of the story”. It could be argued, she says, “that if somebody else is making a fortune off of this, they ought to share the wealth. It’s not a legal judgment. It’s a judgement about morality.”"