A private function

The privacy of people who donate tissue and DNA for research in Britain
should be protected by a panel of experts, says a House of Lords committee. The
Medical Data Panel would vet all research proposals on donated DNA. “They’d be
almost acting as trustees for the data,” says Ron Oxburgh, chairman of the House
of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, which launched a report on
genetic databases last week. Oxburgh says that the panel would be constantly
changing its members to ensure its judgements reflected the moral tone of the
time.