Proposal Mitigates Donor Consent For Tissue Research

In a proposal seeking permission for using tissue from those who have died, in order to promote further research in the field of cloning human stem cells, the health ministry of UK has now aimed at making the consent of the donor unnecessary for any such research.

The change if comes through would allow the researchers to use the donated tissue for studies made even upto 30 years later. Such provisions would allow the laboratories to create cloned human stem cells without explicitly seeking permission/consent of the tissue donor.

Not only this, the proposal would allow the researchers to use the tissue of even those donors who after donating the tissue have died somehow and also those, who due to various possible reasons can not be contacted by the laboratory.

Many laboratories maintain tissue banks, to carry out research work in various fields of medicine. However, the law demands the donor to be notified each time the donated DNA from the tissue is used for research work, creating problems for the researchers in case of an untraced donor or one, who has died.

The proposal has won applause from some leading scientists and Nobel Prize winners, who gave a-‘thumbs up’ to this move against the ban.

The proposal has been tabled as an amendment to the bill on Human Fertilization and Embryology. It is expected to gather support from most of the MPs and will be debated upon, this week in the parliament before a decision is passed on it.