Last week at the Second Regular Session of the 115th Indiana General Assembly, Representatives Peggy Welch (District 60), Eric Koch (District 65), Kreg Battles (District 64), and P. Eric Turner (District 32) introduced House Bill 1020. The proposed legislation will establish a nonprofit corporation to operate an umbilical cord blood bank. As written the legislation also "[r]equires physicians and participating hospitals to inform pregnant patients of the option to donate umbilical cord blood". Although the primary purpose of the bank is to provide medical benefits for Indiana's citizens, it may (depending on the progress of the legislation) provide cord blood for future research studies. The bill was referred the the Committee on Public Health on January 14th, 2008.
PredictER Blog will follow this legislation and will post a more thorough commentary on the ethical, legal and social issues of this proposed biobank in the near future.
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