CBBC Stem Cell Destruction Lawsuit Overview:
- Who: Cord Blood Bank of Canada removed 3,000 children’s stem cell samples from storage ahead of a health inspection, and now will destroy the samples. This comes as parents are suing the blood bank, which kept samples of their children’s stem cells that could be used medically in the future, over an earlier sample destruction incident.
- Why: Cord Blood Bank’s owner claims the company believed the stem cell samples would have been ordered removed by Health Canada as medical waste during the health visit. However, Health Canada denied giving the blood bank any indication that it should remove the samples from storage or stop maintaining them.
- Where: Toronto.
Cord Blood Bank of Canada, a Toronto-based company that stores children’s stem cell samples, removed 3,000 samples from storage ahead of a surprise Health Canada inspection – and now has to dispose of all the samples.
The federal department said in a statement that inspectors conducted an unannounced site visit to verify CBBC’s compliance with the Food and Drugs Act, “including the storage conditions of the (umbilical) cord blood units,” Times News Express reports.
Following the visit, CBBC owner Bernartka Ellison made “false” claims on the company’s website that Health Canada had ordered the blood be removed from storage, and Health Canada wanted to “set the record straight,” it said.
Ellison wrote on the website that Health Canada gave them “no other option” but to remove the samples from storage, and because of that the samples were now being disposed of “in accordance with all applicable rules and regulations.”
Health Canada said it did not in any way tell CBBC to remove the cord blood from storage or to stop maintaining the samples, and also denied allegations it said the company’s clients should not be afforded a hearing regarding the cord blood units, according to Times News Express.
The surprise inspection and disposal of the samples came a week after CBC News reported on a class action lawsuit where Ellison claims that all the samples stored by the business were destroyed nearly three years ago. However, clients have said they were never told their children’s samples had been destroyed and many were still paying annual storage fees.
According to the class action lawsuit filed by Ellison, they had to dispose of the samples in 2018 after Toronto police executed a search warrant as part of an extortion investigation against Ellison. Ellison alleges that during the execution of the warrant, University Health Network “rummaged through the storage unit at the lab, removing hundreds of samples from storage temperatures of approximately –150 degrees and exposing them to room temperature, which is known to cause degradation of cord blood.”
Teresa Sniezek, who had the stem cells of her two daughters stored at CBBC, told Times News Express that she had been trying to get answers from the company for four years and was feeling “cheated” out of a chance to help their children if they were ever in need of the samples.
“I feel taken advantage of. That one chance that you get has been taken away from me … without even notification,” she said.
“I want to know if I was paying for something that was actually there,” she said. “I want to know that (Ellison) will be held accountable for (their) actions if things were not done properly.”
Ellison told CBC in an email that they believed Health Canada would have ordered CBBC to dispose of the stem cell samples as medical waste during the visit, and that is why the samples were removed from storage.
Ellison said they had provided Health Canada with a disposal plan for the samples on or around the day of the inspection, which would have allowed for all the company’s clients “to be heard in advance of their samples’ disposal.”
However, Ellison alleges that Health Canada denied clients the opportunity to be heard by not delaying the inspection.
Health Canada said in the statement that its assessment and verification of compliance was ongoing.
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