House and Senate Introduce Legislation to Reauthorize National Bone Marrow and Umbilical Cord Programs

2010-08-16

The U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate have introduced legislation to reauthorize federally-funded programs that provide for the collection and maintenance of human cord blood stem cells for the treatment of patients and research.

The Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Reauthorization Act of 2010 (S. 3751/H.R. 6081) seeks to reauthorize the C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program and National Registry and the National Cord Blood Inventory program through 2015. The National Cord Blood Inventory provides grants to public cord blood banks to assist them in collecting donated cord blood units that are then listed on a national registry, established as part of by the C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program, which lists potential marrow donors and donated cord blood units. Specifically, the legislation would reauthorize a combined $53 million in funding for the two programs in each of the five years and would also require:

  • Qualified cord blood banks to develop an annual plan and demonstrate ongoing progress toward achieving self-sufficiency.
  • Cord blood banks to provide a plan on how to increase cord blood collection and help establish or contract with new collection sites.
  • The collection and maintenance of at least 150,000 new units of high-quality cord blood for transplantation through the C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program.
  • Further studies and demonstration projects to explore increasing cord blood donation and collection from a genetically diverse population.
  • The extension of privacy protections included in the original statue for cord blood transplant patients and donors to bone marrow transplant patients and donors.
  • The General Accountability Office to conduct a study on cord blood donation and collection for submission to the appropriate House and Senate committees within one year of the bill’s enactment.

With both the House and Senate adjourned for the month of August, there will be no further congressional action on either bill prior to September. However, the bill’s sponsors in the House and Senate expect that it will be considered by each chamber sometime early this fall.

ASH’s statement in support of a federally funded national cord blood bank program is available of the ASH website.

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