Medical Copyright?

As we were discussing the issues concerning Henrietta Lacks and her immortal cell line, the question arose as to whether or not her or her family deserved financial reimbursement due to the medical breakthrough resulting from her experience.  I had a bit of a problem with this, a lot because this concept goes hand in hand with the idea of copyright.  Although Henrietta was influential in the founding of the immortal cell line, she made no scholarly contribution to its founding.  She didn't even grant consent for the procedure, so she had no awareness of her cells even being taken from her.  Although I agree that Henrietta's story is significant in the history of medical science, I do not view her as an individual as significant.   If you reimburse her family, then every time someone's treatment requires her cell line, she would need more reimbursement and then you get into the idea of copyright and is medical copyright even ethical.  I just didn't see a need to financial reimburse them out of sympathy.  It could have been anyone.  Like I said in class, it's like hitting the lottery.