BMJ  2004;328:1518 (26 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7455.1518-a

News

Human Tissue Bill is modified because of research needs

Clare Dyer, legal correspondent

BMJ

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The UK government has caved in to the demands of biomedical researchers and watered down controversial measures in its Human Tissue Bill that would have required the consent of patients for the storage and use for research of any human tissue or bodily fluids taken from living persons.

Scientists had warned that the requirements of the bill, introduced in response to an outcry over the widespread retention of children's organs without parents' consent, could prevent potentially life saving research.

They argued that obtaining express consent for the storage and use of tissue and bodily fluids would be hugely costly in money and human resources. Some three million solid tissue samples and over 100 million blood samples are taken in the United Kingdom each year.

In its original form the bill made it a criminal offence, punishable by a maximum 12 months' prison sentence, for a doctor to use any leftover . . . [Full text of this article]

-->
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

The human tissue bill and the mental capacity bill
Kathleen Liddell, David K Menon, and Ron Zimmern
BMJ 2004 328: 1510-1511. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ