There is scandal and drama over at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institutes! Last year, Dr. Bonds, the principal Sickle Cell Disease research director, found out that the NHLBI was using the blood of sickle cell patients enrolled in clinical trials to create immortalized cell lines for future study without proper informed consent.
This is illegal (all blood and tissue specimens for research MUST have informed consent for all participants).As the project director, she instituted a policy to destroy these cells and reported this oversight to the administration. However, she was met with resistance, and was basically black-balled by the administration in keeping the cells active, and then fired a few weeks later.
Dr. Bonds had gone up the chain of command in reporting the incident, and when this didn’t work, she went to the oversight board to file a complaint about the improper practices. She took the case to court, and won the right to a federal court trial. We will be following this case with marked interest but we want to know, after reading the article, whose side are you on? If it was your blood being used without consent, how would you feel? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
[stextbox id=”alert” color=”000000″ bcolor=”000000″ bgcolor=”9e65d7″]Do you have a problem with your blood being used for research without your consent? Share your thoughts in the comments section. [/stextbox]