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I WAS horrified to read that polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are causing
female polar bears to change sex
(¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ, 9 September, p 5). It
stirred me to ask Chris Mullin, a junior minister in the Department of the
Environment, Transport and the Regions, if Britain was joining in the
international effort to stop these pollutants from getting into Arctic waters.
It is not the sort of subject that I’d normally expect to be at the top of the
ministerial in tray, but Mullin has responsibility for water and coastal
policy.

He replied that the government views as very serious the escape of PCBs and
the adverse effects that they and other persistent organic pollutants (POPs) may
be having on the pristine conditions of the Arctic. POPs can be transported long
distances both in the atmosphere and in water, generally from warmer to colder
climates.

This means, said Mullin, that international action is essential to protect
the polar regions. In London in September Britain hosted a meeting of the Arctic
Council, the intergovernmental body of Arctic nations to which Britain has
observer status. A key initiative taken at the meeting was to draw up plans for
a multilateral cooperative project to phase out the use of PCBs and to better
manage waste containing PCBs in the Russian Federation, which has a huge legacy
of sites contaminated with these chemicals. Remedial action is a priority and
during 2001 a number of pilot projects will aim to clean up such sites, said
Mullin.

On a broader scale, the Arctic Council is developing an action plan to
eliminate pollution of the Arctic. Its aim will be to identify priority
pollution problems and to work out ways of cleaning them up.

WHAT of the all-important free vote on embryo research? MPs and peers in
Parliament have still to be told when it will happen. In August, the government
published its response to the recommendations made in Stem Cells: Medical
progress with responsibility, the report drawn up by an expert group headed
by Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer
(¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ, 19 August, p 4).
The vote is likely to be a highly charged occasion, so I asked Yvette
Cooper, the minister for public health, if all health ministers support the
report—rumour has it some don’t.

Cooper said that the group’s report emphasises the extent to which stem cells
have potential as a source of new tissue for therapeutic use. Donaldson’s group
concludes that research is warranted across the range of stem cell sources,
including embryos created by in vitro fertilisation or cell nuclear replacement.
While recognising the views of those opposed to embryo research on ethical
grounds, the group concluded that the proposed new research and currently
permitted forms of embryo research raise similar issues. The Human Fertilisation
and Embryology Act 1990 would provide the necessary safeguards for this new
research, she said.

The minister went on to say that the government accepts all the expert
group’s recommendations and will introduce a free vote in both Houses of
Parliament later in the year, to extend the purposes for which embryos can be
used in research under the 1990 act. The government will also bring forward
legislation to reinforce the existing ban on cloning people, she said.

I have not the least compunction about voting for the use of stem cells. How
could I look members of our local Parkinson’s Disease Society and other such
organisations for disabled people in the eye, if I didn’t do just that?