A session of discussion the "legal aspects of organ transfers and clinical trials" at the 11th Annual International Conference of Ain Shams University

Within the framework of the sessions of the first day of the eleventh annual international conference of Ain Shams University, entitled "Knowledge Economy... for a Better Life", which lasts for two days, May 10 and 11, 2023, a session entitled "Legal Aspects of Organ Transfers and Clinical Trials" was held, chaired by Prof. Ayman Saleh, Vice President for Graduate Studies and Research, and its activities were managed by Prof. Mohamed Safi, Dean of the Faculty of Law, at Ain Shams University.

Prof. Ayman Saleh explained, in his speech, that Egyptian law regulates organ transplantation, where a law related to organ transplantation was issued, but there were some obstacles facing its implementation, including the extent to which society accepted the idea of organ transplantation, and the difficulty of identifying and diagnosing cases of clinical death or brain stem death that need to an intensive care physician to prescribe and diagnose them.

Prof. Muhammad Safi indicated that the matter is related to a subject in which legal, religious, and medical opinions intersect, that it needs more awareness and societal culture, and that Law No. (5) of 2010 and its amendments in 2017 settled many matters, and any new legislative organization for this subject must take into account the characteristics of the society, its customs, traditions, and the development of its practices.

Prof. Hossam El-Din affirmed that organ theft is a crime that carries a heavy penalty in Egyptian law, and that Egyptian laws give great attention to the sanctity of the body and organs.

He pointed to the need to protect doctors who perform organ transplantation and to enact laws to protect them if they were suspected wrongly, with the need to define death.

And Prof. Fatma Galal reviewed, during her speech, the current situation of organ transplantation in Egypt, where the donation in Egypt is from the living, while global trends tend to take from the deceased.

The features of the hoped-for change in the field of organ transplantation were raised by increasing controls and controlling the procedures for granting and renewing licenses for cultivation, reducing the establishments authorized to transplant, activating the current requirements in the law, facilitating the donation approval system, digitizing organ donation and the Supreme Committee for Organ Transplantation.

Prof. Fatma Jalal explained the system of consent after exclusion for organ donation, which is applied globally, is that your organs are donated in the event of your death unless you express your desire to do so.

She touched on the incentives granted to the organ donor, stressing the importance of spreading the culture of organ donation in Egypt and raising awareness and the need for more discussions and studies in this regard.

Dr. Doaa Hamed Abdel Rahman, a teacher of civil law at the Faculty of Law at Ain Shams University, spoke about the importance of legal regulation of clinical trials, citing the experience of Trovan, which was carried out by Pfizer and tested in Nigeria on adults and children, explaining that part of the legal procedures for this trial, which ended with the payment of an amount as compensation from Pfizer for the parents of the children who died, the trial of TGN1412 showed the legal action that was taken at the time.

She explained that Egypt issued the Clinical Trials Regulatory Law in December 2020, and the law coincided with the spread of the Corona pandemic, and indeed, volunteers were selected to test vaccines for Corona, knowing that the law regulating the trials was not finally launched and activated.

The articles of the laws regulating clinical trials reviewed the protection of the respondents, ensuring their safety and rights, and emphasizing the principle of consent and consent from the clinical trial respondent.

His Eminence Sheikh Ahmed Turki explained that religious opinion is an introduction to the Egyptian personality, and that organ transplantation, when it was introduced in the past in Egypt, was categorically prohibited, but fatwas were issued confirming its permissibility, but the Egyptian street rejected it in a big way.

Stressing that the organ transplantation process must be subject to several religious legislations, including that the donor should not be harmed and that the transplantation process should not cause mixing of lineages if it takes place.

A panel discussion was conducted at the end of the session, which included a group of professors of the Faculty of Law and professors of the faculties of Medicine, where Sheikh Ahmed Turki, Professor. Hamdi Abdel-Rahman, Professor Jamil Abdel-Baqi, Professor. Yassin El-Shazly, Professor. Diaa Marzouk, Professor. Lamia Al-Wakeel, and Professor. Sherif Alwan participated.