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. 2005 Feb;2(2):e44.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0020044. Epub 2005 Feb 22.

Can routine commercial cord blood banking be scientifically and ethically justified?

Nicholas M Fisk  1 , Irene A G Roberts, Roger Markwald, Vladimir Mironov
Affiliations

Can routine commercial cord blood banking be scientifically and ethically justified?

Nicholas M Fisk et al. PLoS Med. 2005 Feb.

Abstract

Umbilical cord blood--the blood that remains in the placenta after birth--can be collected and stored frozen for years. A well-accepted use of cord blood is as an alternative to bone marrow as a source of hematopoietic stem cells for allogeneic transplantation to siblings or to unrelated recipients; women can donate cord blood for unrelated recipients to public banks. However, private banks are now open that offer expectant parents the option to pay a fee for the chance to store cord blood for possible future use by that same child (autologous transplantation).

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: NMF is a consultant to OmniCyte, and chaired the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists' Scientific Advisory Committee at the time of its opinion paper on cord blood banking. He is on the editorial board of PLoS Medicine. IAGR declares that she has no competing interests. RM is an unpaid consultant on the Board of Advisors of CureSource, a commercial umbilical cord blood bank. VM declares that he has no competing interests.

Figures

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Are commercial UCB banks exploiting the emotional vulnerabilities of parents for financial gain?
(Illustration: Giovanni Maki)
None
CureSource, a commercial UCB bank, believes that banking is a “once in a lifetime opportunity” (Figure: CureSource)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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