1 May 2008
Statement from Virgin Health Bank referring to the statement by the Human Tissue Authority Re. cord blood collection regulations (30 April 2008)
A spokesman for Virgin Health Bank said:
“We support the HTA’s well intentioned rationale but this rather hasty implementation of licenses may introduce a number of unforeseen complications. They are imposing unrealistic timescales for the licences to be put in place and we urge them to rethink.
1000’s of parents will effectively be denied the ability to collect their cord blood and these regulations will have a hugely detrimental effect on an already under resourced cord blood bank.
We already know that there is a critical shortage of cord blood units and there is little incentive for NHS Maternity units to apply for these licenses which may result in further constraint on the availability of cord bloods for lifesaving transplants.
Over 4000 people are dying every year from a shortfall in umbilical cord blood donations required for stem cell treatments of leukaemia and a number of other rare blood disorders.
Dr Paul Veys, Bone Marrow Transplant Consultant at Great Ormond Street, told a recent meeting of the foremost UK cord blood organisations: “We are only able to meet the needs of about 50% of cases of diseases like leukaemia that would benefit from a bone marrow or cord blood transplant from UK donors at the moment. However if the current resource of around 11,000 cord blood units was more like 100,000 finding a matched donor would be easier and we would be able to successfully treat more of these critically ill people.”