Issue date: 18 June 2004

Sensible balance in Human Tissue Bill

The Wellcome Trust, the UK's largest biomedical research charity, has welcomed the Government's amendments to the Human Tissue Bill.

Dr Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust, said: "This has been a priority for the Wellcome Trust and we are delighted by these amendments. We now have a proper and sensible balance between protecting the rights and confidentiality of patients and their families, and the need to safeguard research that will provide benefits for health in the future."

The Human Tissue Bill came as a response to the events at Alder Hey and Bristol hospitals, where the organs of deceased children were taken and stored without the consent or knowledge of parents or families. Whilst the Wellcome Trust has always supported the principle of the Bill, it had concerns that the initial draft would have been damaging to medical research and could have prevented potentially lifesaving studies from taking place.

The Human Tissue Bill has its report stage and third reading in the House of Commons on 28 June and will then pass to the House of Lords.

ENDS

Media contacts
Miriam de Lacy
Wellcome Trust Media Office
Tel: 020 7611 8285
Mobile: 07710 063310
E-mail: m.delacy@wellcome.ac.uk

Mark Anderson
Wellcome Trust Media Office
Tel: 020 7611 8612
Mobile: 07718 582561
E-mail: m.anderson@wellcome.ac.uk

Note to editors

1. The Wellcome Trust is an independent research funding charity established in 1936 under the will of the tropical medicine pioneer Sir Henry Wellcome. The Trust's mission is to foster and promote research with the aim of improving human and animal health and it currently spends over £400 million per annum.