Facing the possibility that they might have to destroy stored human blood and tissue samples because of a law on human biomedical samples passed last year, researchers yesterday urged the government to help them find a different solution.
Adopted on Feb. 3 last year, the Human Body Biological Database Management Act (人體生物資料庫管理條例) includes a one-year buffer period for researchers to obtain the required permits or consent to store human blood and tissue samples. After the deadline next year, all samples without proper paperwork have to be destroyed.
The biomedical industry estimates that by Feb. 5, it might have to destroy more than 1 million samples stored by hospital laboratories, biotech companies, or genetic databases that were before the legislation was enacted.
Epidemiologist Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁), who is a research fellow at Academia Sinica, said many important research projects, such as one on a lung cancer gene, have been suspended because the deadline is approaching.
He said that researchers took years to establish human biological databases. If they want to keep the samples, researchers now have to go back to ask the providers whether they agree that the samples can be used for new research, to submit the renewed agreement papers to the ethnics committee and then continue their research only after the renewed agreement passes a committee review, he said.
Academia Sinica researcher Chen Ting-hsin (陳定信), who specializes in hepatitis studies, said he had obtained human biological samples for research on Hepatitis B and gained consent from the providers to use the specimen in research.
“Now researchers have found that they could use the same samples for research on Hepatitis C, but have to go back to the patients to get their consent for using their samples for Hepatitis C studies,” he said. “It may seem easy in words, but it’s hard to do.”
Chen Chien-jen said that because the new law puts restrictions on exporting human biological samples, it would become more difficult for Taiwan to be included in transnational clinical studies.
Director of the Department of Health’s (DOH) Bureau of Medical Affairs, Shih Chung-liang (石崇良), said there were two possible ways to resolve the problem researchers face under the new law.
If the sample provider did not specify which research projects their samples were authorized to be used on, researchers may use the sample for new studies as long as the ethics committee approves, Shih said.
Shih said that researchers may also hide all information related to the sample provider so that it would be impossible to find out who that person was, or keep the sample temporarily until obtaining renewed consent before initiating new research.
However, several human rights groups, including the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, the Human Sample Protection Association Taiwan, the Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association and Taiwan Women’s Link, issued a joint statement yesterday calling on the DOH to execute the law as it is and destroy all unauthorized samples on Feb. 5. If the department violates the law, the statement said, they would report the case to the Control Yuan.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
RSS