Biobanks for research. Ethical and legal aspects in human biological samples collections in France.

Because they gather huge quantities of human biological samples and information allowing for better understanding of diseases, biobanks appear as a very powerful tool for boosting both medical research and public health as a whole. Although France does not really appear as a leader in biobanking compared to China or UK, biobanks and other samples collections abound in our country and have then been regulated, even though french law does not use the term biobank as such. The present article gives an overview of the current legal framework and explores the remaining ethical and legal issues, concerning particularly the protection of donors, the sharing of biobanks content and the sharing of biobanks benefits. The article explains how these universal questions arise in this country and what answers (sometimes specific) they get or could get in the following years.

Lost property? Legal compensation for destroyed sperm: a reflection and comparison drawing on UK and French perspectives.

In a recent case in the UK, six men stored their sperm before undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer in case they proved to be infertile after the treatment. The sperm was not properly stored and as a result was inadvertently destroyed. The men sued the NHS Trust that stored the sperm and were in the end successful. This paper questions the basis on which the judgement was made and the rationale behind it, namely that the men 'had ownership' of the sperm, and that compensation was thus due on the grounds that the men's property had been destroyed. We first argue that the claim is erroneous and enhances the tendency towards the commodification of body parts. We then suggest that the men could have been compensated for the harm done to them without granting property rights, and that this would, at least in philosophical and ethical terms, have been more appropriate. To help illustrate this, we draw on a parallel case in French law in which a couple whose embryos had been destroyed were overtly denied ownership rights in them. Finally, we suggest some possible ethical and practical problems if the proprietary view expressed in the UK ruling were to become dominant in law, with particular focus on the storing of genetic information in biobanks. We conclude that, although compensation claims should not necessarily be ruled out, a 'no property in the body' approach should be the default position in cases of detached bodily materials, the alternative being significantly ethically problematic.

[Sharing of biotechnology: contractual agreements as avant-garde]. / Partage des biotechnologies: le contrat comme avant-garde.

In the face of growing exclusivist strategies that tend to hamper research and undermine equity, sharing imperatives have become a cornerstone of biotechnology development. Whereas a proliferation of laws and conventions now require the sharing of biological resources and knowledge as well as the sharing of benefits, contractual agreements more and more appear as a most useful tool to implement these requirements.

Environmental disasters: preparing for impact assessments and operational feedback.

On March 24, 2006, the French Minister of Environment asked the Committee for Prevention and Precaution (CPP), an independent multidisciplinary committee created in 1996, to conduct a methodological analysis of operational feedback of natural and technological disasters to determine if France is equipped to collect the information and data necessary for the assessment, and optimal management of a disaster and its consequences. The Committee's analysis was based on the testimony it heard from 13 experts--scientists and representatives of associations and advocacy groups--and its review of the literature, including operational feedback reports. Its response to the Minister focused on the assessment of the health, social, environmental, and economic impacts of disasters and on their operational feedback (defined as the systematic analysis of a past event to draw lessons for the management of the risk), as practiced in France. It presents the results of the literature review about the consequences of disasters, expert's views on the current utility and limitations of impact assessments and operational feedback, the CPP's discussion of these results, and its recommendations to improve impact assessment and operational feedback of disasters. These recommendations cover preparation for and activation of data collection and operational feedback, financial provisions, coordination of stakeholders, education and training in disaster preparedness, and the distribution and use of data from operational feedback.