Human Tissue (Availability)

Debate between Mark Tami and Russell Brown

Wednesday 23rd June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I attended this debate not intending to speak, but I congratulate the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) on securing it.

I wish to talk about the terrible condition of Parkinson’s disease. Yesterday evening I was making my way home and called my wife, as I routinely do. She informed me that a family member and good friend of ours, who is on holiday in Malta, had suffered an aneurysm, and is on a life-support machine until her family can get to her later today. I have known the lady for many years, and I know that she wants her organs to be donated to medical science, but tragically, she is hundreds of miles away from her family. That quickly brought home to me the fact that we need more research, and that more organs need to be donated to allow research to go ahead.

Parkinson’s disease, as we all know, is a terrible, debilitating condition. Every hour, someone in this country is told that they have Parkinson’s, and, if anything, the situation is getting worse. Parkinson’s UK is an admirable organisation doing its utmost to battle against the condition. Since 1969, it has spent over £45 million on groundbreaking research. At the start of the year, it was supporting 90 research projects worth over £15 million. Parkinson’s UK believes that it should be made easier for researchers to gain access to donated organs.

To be usable for research purposes, the brain must be harvested within 24 hours; however, all too often there are obstacles to that. For example, hospital staff are often reluctant to harvest organs without a death certificate—rightly so, on occasion. When someone dies over the weekend, there is often no one available to sign a death certificate, meaning that the organs, including the brain, cannot be harvested before they deteriorate and become totally unusable. When that happens, Parkinson’s researchers miss out on resources vital to developing better treatments and a cure. It also means that the wishes of the deceased, including those carrying donor cards, and their families simply cannot be followed. Parkinson’s UK is therefore calling for guidance for hospitals on the importance of harvesting organs, including the brain, quickly—within 24 hours—to avoid those obstacles. It also calls for greater public awareness of the importance of donated organs in medical research—an issue that the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire raised.

The brain is the principal organ affected by Parkinson’s, and it is due to the death of specialised nerve cells in specific areas. However, the condition can also affect other parts of the body. There is emerging evidence, which the hon. Lady touched on, that early pathological changes found in the brain may start in the gut. The condition may actually start there and then spread to the brain. Much more research needs to be carried out in that area to investigate what is happening.

Parkinson’s UK funds a brain bank that makes it possible to look at changes that have happened in the brain once a person has passed away. However, it is also necessary to look at other organs, from people with and without Parkinson’s, particularly when they are alive, if at all possible. That would make it possible to correlate a person’s symptoms with any specific changes within the body; that is as important as looking at cells. A key challenge is the shortage of human tissue, including intestinal tissue from the gut, that is available for research. When it does become available, all too often there are difficulties associated with obtaining it. Parkinson’s UK would welcome a tissue database, as it would enable researchers to locate tissue more easily, thereby obtaining maximum benefit from it.

[Mark Tami]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we need the media to address research properly and to explain why it is being done? Too often, particularly in the tabloid press, we see headlines like “Frankenstein science”, and stories on experimentation for the sake of it, which has never been the case. Such language further undermines the likelihood of people giving consent; they would be more likely to do so if they were fully up to speed with why research was being carried out.

[Mr Brown]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point because I was going to come on to that issue. He made it abundantly clear that, regrettably, on too many occasions much of what we encounter day to day, especially in this arena, is driven by media hype and scare stories. His point is spot on. As the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire said, the situation regarding presumed consent and everything surrounding it is delicate. New Members and those of us who were here previously will encounter over the coming months and years a significant amount of correspondence from people who are deeply concerned about organ donation and the provision of tissue. My hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) is right: when we tackle issues such as this one, we have to have open, honest and sensible adult debate, not driven by hype that, frankly, terrifies people.

I do not wish to say much more in my short contribution. Suffice it to say that the debate is very important indeed, and even that is probably an understatement. I have covered Parkinson’s disease, and I would like the Minister to address the issues surrounding that, the tissue database and how we overcome problems. I suspect that they occur too often, when the harvesting of organs needs to be dealt with very quickly—within 24 hours. How can we handle that better to ensure that we meet the wishes of those who want to give organs at the end of their life to save the lives of others and for research? Making that decision was a significant step for those individuals and we should do whatever is humanly possible to make it easier to respect their wishes.