Ethical Concerns on the Use of Laboratory Waste
Viroj Wiwanitkit MD*
Affiliation : * Department of Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University
Left samples from laboratory analysis can be a major waste in medicine. At present, waste can be re-
used for new purposes such as medical research. In the present article, the author will discuss clinical
pathology ethics in this respect(1).
1. What is good waste management? Based on clinical pathology principles, left samples from routine
analysis must be kept long enough to allow re-checking. Then, waste disposal must be correctly performed
and should not disturb the environment(2).
2. In using laboratory waste for further medical research, one should consider these topics:
2.1 Waste must be “real waste”, completely passed through a laboratory process and ready for
disposal. In this case, the approval of an ethical committee might not be necessary if no individual, patient
data are revealed(3).
2.2 Waste must be accidentally left, not intentionally left. This is a very important principle, since
sometimes waste can result from excessive sample collections, which can be seen in cases when a physician
tries to collect a biobank sample(4). In this case, although the patient signed a consent form from the hospital
for treatment, which covers investigation, it does not mean that excessive sample collection can be performed.
Informed consent seems to be an inadequate measure of public acceptance of biobank-based research(4). In
addition, an ethical committee should carefully ensure that the patient was actually informed before ap-
proval.
Keywords : Waste, Laboratory, Ethics
