ANYONE who is interested in the tangles of modern personal insurance should
take a look at Genetics and Insurance, a recent report from the House
of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology.
The committee soundly criticises insurers for applying genetic tests before
their reliability is fully established. It would have been better, it says, if
the insurance companies had been more cautious in this difficult area. Their
haste will bring them little immediate financial reward but a good deal of
adverse publicity, it warns.
Within the report is an especially moving comment from Cambridge geneticist
Martin Bobrow: 鈥淭he simple inherited diseases we are looking at today are an
area in which people who are pretty seriously disadvantaged do not need more
trouble in their lives; and trying to load insurance issues on top of their
medical issues could only be justified if the evidence was really clear and if
the financial implications were significant.
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鈥淔rom the evidence we received, we believe neither of these conditions has
been satisfied. If the choice has to be made between exposing insurance
companies to a small degree of short-term risk, and increasing the stigma and
discrimination many of these sufferers feel, then the choice for government, and
our society, is clear.鈥�
Insurers and legislators should take this criticism to heart.
AS INVITED chairperson for part of a recent meeting organised by the British
Society of Soil Science in London, I was impressed by the contribution of the
then Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR). The
department had been drawing up guidelines to protect us against unhealthy soil
contaminants. These guidelines will help when it comes to prosecuting cases of
land contamination, and also when previously used brownfield sites need to be
cleaned up so they can be built on. The toxicological models on which the
guidelines are based are now nearly complete, and the DETR promised to reveal
the data on which the models are based.
I hope that the break-up of the giant DETR after the election will not delay
the guidelines. That would be a pity given the tireless efforts of soil
scientists and civil servants who drew up the consultation paper, The Draft
Soil Strategy for England
(快猫短视频, 7 April, p 51
and www.detr.gov.uk/consult.htm).
RESEARCHERS at the GKSS Research Centre in Germany have devised a way of
reducing vapour leakage at the petrol pump
(快猫短视频, 7 April, p 22).
So the forecourts of filling stations could soon be free of the stench of
volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and be far healthier places. Because Britain
is committed to the VOCs protocol of the UN Convention on Long-Range
Transboundary Air Pollution, I asked Peter Hain, the then energy minister, if
the Department of Trade and Industry was in contact with the German
researchers.
Hain said that since ratifying the VOCs protocol in 1994, Britain has sought
ways to reduce VOCs. Estimates show that emissions from refuelling vehicles
account for less than 2 per cent of Britain鈥檚 total VOCs emissions. Hain added
that while the recovery of petrol vapour emissions during car refuelling may
have a big environmental impact on a national scale, there are possible
pollution control and health benefits at a local level also. One of these is a
reduction in benzene concentrations on the forecourt, which the minister said is
a significant issue for urban stations. I agree.