The Royal Society supports the aims of the Human Tissue Act to increase public confidence in the legislative process surrounding the storage and use of human tissues. The Society has taken an active role in voicing the views and concerns of the scientific community over the initial drafting of Act and many of the issues raised by the Society and other stakeholders during the parliamentary process of the Bill were addressed. However, we still have concerns about a number of fundamental issues raised in the draft Regulations which may endanger the continuation of vital scientific and clinical research. These include concerns relating to licences for the storage of tissues and that ethics committee approval is required for every new category of investigations on a set of appropriately anonymised samples.
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