Ethical and legal aspects of human tissue banking

The collection and banking of human fluids and tissues is an integral part of biomonitoring on a global scale. However, this presents unique problems on the interface between ethics and law that are unlike those which are encountered in other contexts. They include issues of collection, disposition, ownership, access and use. Moreover, different jurisdictions have different laws that deal with these issues. This makes coordination and standardization difficult to achieve on an international scale. This chapter identifies the major ethical and legal issues involved and proposes a model for dealing with the problems based on analogous developments in medical informatics, but independent of juridical and legal variations.