Scientists could be jailed for doing basic research; the country's life-saving cervical smear programme could grind to a halt; major programmes to find treatments for cancer and other diseases might be halted.
This grim scenario has been outlined by some of the country's leading researchers who warned that the Government's Human Tissue Bill - scheduled to become law next month - will devastate the training of medical staff and the search for treatments and vaccines.
Critics, including the country's leading medical charities, expert societies and research groups, say the Bill, designed to control the removal of organs at post-mortems and during operations, will paralyse day-to-day gathering of tissues, blood and urine samples for use by researchers and academics.
'Changes in the law on post-mortem tissue are necessary, but this Bill covers samples of spit, urine, blood and tumours cut from cancer patients. It will become a criminal offence, punishable by prison, if a doctor uses left-over material from a patient's sample for training health service staff or for research without getting the patient's consent,' said pathologist Prof Peter Furness, from Leicester General Hospital.
'Given that hundreds of millions of samples are taken every year, the effect will be to paralyse medical practice or, more likely, bring an end to this sort of work.'
The Human Tissue Bill was drafted after the scandal at Alder Hey hospital, in Liverpool, where children's organs, including hearts, livers and in one case a head, were retained without permission. The Government promised to prevent future abuses, and last year produced the Human Tissue Bill aimed mostly at control ling organ use after post-mortem examinations. However, the Bill's drafting has left the related issue of the sampling of tissues from living patients in a state of confusion. The impact on cervical screening looks particularly bleak, say experts.
At present, GPs take samples from patients, and those found to have anomalies are sent for check-ups. Smears from women found to have cancer are crucial in showing technicians how to spot the disease during screening.
But the new law would make it illegal to use such smears for training unless prior consent is given, and that would mean every woman going for a smear would have to sign a special consent, which would involve her doctor spending considerable time explaining the ethical issues involved.
'There could be dire consequences for research into diseases that affect millions of people,' said Mark Walport, direct of the Wellcome Trust, the country's biggest medical research charity.
Walport said he was hopeful crucial changes could be made to the Bill, but most other scientists are less hopeful. 'The Government has had a year to make changes and it has ignored us,' said Furness.
The Government remains adamant its Bill is sound. 'The Bill will provide certainty and confidence for the public, patients and families, doctors and researchers,' said Health Minister Rosie Winterton.
