In 1998, Baker, Ruoff, and Madoff that the organism is most likely a species of Mycoplasma called Mycoplasma phocacerebrale.[7] This Mycoplasma was isolated in an epidemic of seal disease occurring in the Baltic Sea.[8]
It’s not that we don’t know what causes it, and it can be cultured from seals and has been. It’s that in order to empirically and categorically say in any way that matters that the organism is definitely the cause of seal finger…
You would need to be culturing a person infected with the disease from whom treatment is being withheld. Either against their will or with their “consent” wouldn’t matter. As we know what the disease can lead to, the ethical course of treatment is clear: a bunch of culture ruining antibiotics injected into you. Right away, without delay.
Because asking or even taking advantage of someone declining treatment to assess and write the confirmation study that says “Mycoplasma phocacerebrale definite cause of seal finger” goes against a lot of ethical science limitations.
This is what makes the donating the affected limb of someone who never got care for science post-mortem also work as both a neat joke and ethical loophole. Researchers could accept that gift, ethically.