The Ministry of Health (MOH) is investigating cord blood storage provider Cordlife Group for its mishandling of an estimated 2,200 cord blood units belonging to around 2,150 clients (Investigations into Cordlife Group expected to take about 6 more weeks: Ong Ye Kung, Dec 8).

Regulatory and enforcement action might be taken against it.

My heart goes out to the affected parents who spent thousands of dollars to store their child’s cord blood so that in the event that the child suffers from blood diseases and some cancers, the haematopoietic stem cells in the cord blood can be used in stem cell transplants to treat the diseases.

The mishandling must be upsetting and distressing to parents, but I hope they can find solace in one study that showed the chance that a child will use their cord blood over their lifetime is small, between 1 in 400 and 1 in 200,000.

I opted to collect and store my two children’s cord blood about a decade ago. Each of my children’s cord blood was split into two and stored in two different facilities, so in the event there is failure in one facility, there is a back-up storage. This was the reason I chose my cord blood storage provider, which offers this as a default.

I think MOH should consider this requirement as part of its review to mandate this arrangement for any future cord blood storage.

Lim Ai Tiong