cord blood
Janet Cribb
The research into the use of stem cells from cord blood as an alternative to bone marrow to treat disease has progressed in leaps and bounds over the last decade. There will always be controversy over the nature of the research. However, it is a fact that it has happened and many new parents are now given the option of saving the cells from the umbilical cord at birth. It is a simple procedure and takes place outside the delivery room after the cord is cut. The cells are harvested from the cord, treated by deep freezing in liquid nitrogen and stored against possible problems in later life. Private companies are offering this service, but the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in England expresses the opinion that some of the claims of companies in this field may be exaggerated or founded on unsubstantiated clinical findings.
It is advisable to make specific reference in your Last Will and Testament if you have had this procedure done privately and leave the cells to your children or their guardians in your Will and also alert them to the fact that the cells exist, just in case the papers are overlooked. The following is a quote from the RCOG about the legal status of the stem cells.
6.2 Whose blood is it?
The issue of who owns cord blood has yet to be tested in the courts. On one hand, it has been suggested that the cord blood sample is more likely to be the property of the child on the basis that it is developmentally, biologically and genetically part of the child.26,27 On the other, it might be proposed that it is more likely that the sample is the property of the mother once the cord is cut: e.g. the mother's unfettered right to consent to what is done to her own body means that once the cord is cut she is free to refuse to consent to the removal of the afterbirth. Legal rights of property are not generally founded on genetic identity. The cord blood consigned to storage may be the subject of a gift from the mother to her child depending on the terms of the consignment. If right, this raises further issues as to the use of the products deriving from the sample taken.
If it is declared to be stored for the child's use then, until the time of majority, it will be held on trust for the child and its use may be seen as a right to be exercised in the best interests of the child by the trustee, who will probably be the mother, subject to the determination of the court in case of dispute. Directed donation for a sibling may be regarded as being in the best interests of the family and, thus, of the child from whose placenta it was taken. Once the child attains the age of 18 years, any trust will come to an end and the use of the stored cord blood will be decided by the individual described by the consignment contract as being the beneficial owner.
The rest of this article makes interesting reading and you can save it as a file from the RCOG web-site.
Advances in medical research might one day allow the cells to be used to correct faults in an older child or adult. By using stem cells (the cells from which all other cells are generated) from the person themselves a perfect match of donor and recipient is possible; the risk of rejection is almost zero. It is basically a transplant procedure with all the accompanying risks and problems. Most of these are eliminated because there is no rejection of the transplanted tissue, the body accepts it absolutely. You can also leave cord blood to the Cord Blood Bank for general use, in a similar way to storing blood. It then has to be matched with the recipient’s tissue type and blood group.
The following web-sites contain useful information about Stem Cells:
http://www.rcog.org.uk
This page has the RCOG’s summary of opinion and the facts very clearly laid out
http://www.rcog.org.uk/index.asp?PageID=545
http://www.womens-health.co.uk/transplant_basics.html
http://cord.blood.co.uk/
From the USA:
http://pediatrics.about.com/od/agesandstages/i/cord_blood_bank.htm
From Canada:
http://www.cordbloodbankofcanada.com/
This is an extremely useful link which has the details of all countries rules and websites to their official cord blood banks:
http://www.parentsguidecordblood.org/content/usa/banklists/regulations.shtml#asia
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Janet Cribb
Channel: Wills & Living Trusts |
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