IN ALL the talk about funding Britain鈥檚 National Health Service, one self-evident point invariably gets pushed aside. This is that our expectations of what it should be doing for us have risen inexorably. When I became an MP in 1962, constituents used to ask me: 鈥淚s there any chance that my relative X could get a kidney graft?鈥� They now ask for kidney transplants, but frame it in the language of rights.
Given the dire shortage of human kidneys for transplant, one source of donors could be animals. The editorial 鈥淲aiting for a miracle鈥� (快猫短视频, 12 January, p 3) poured cold water on the idea, but I wanted to know the government鈥檚 take on xenotransplantation. So I asked healthcare minister Jacqui Smith.
Smith replied that this kind of transplantation could be a solution to the shortfall of available human kidneys. Given developments in the genetic modification of animals, especially pigs, the problem of rejection associated with tissue and organ transplantation between species could well be overcome. If so, the supply of organs might finally meet medical demand. Other procedures involving cell treatments, bone marrow, skin and corneas are also being developed and could be of great value. Indeed, clinical trials involving cell transplantation for the treatment of Parkinson鈥檚 disease are already in hand in the US, said the minister.
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Smith went on to say that the government wants to explore the potential of xenotransplantation, but cautiously and step by step. The well-being and safety of patients has to be the foremost consideration when looking at any proposal to perform this sort of transplantation. The government will not permit any clinical trials involving the transplantation of animal tissue into humans unless there is adequate evidence to justify the procedure, said Smith.
That said, I hope ministers won鈥檛 insist on being too stringent in their controls. There must be many patients who die prematurely unless some risk is taken involving transplantation. We just need to be sure we don鈥檛 unleash some unmanageable disease in the process.
WE IN Europe are great ones for telling Central Americans and Australians how they should protect their coral reefs. But maybe we should be looking nearer home鈥攖o the likes of the Darwin Mounds 185 kilometres north-west of Cape Wrath in Scotland, and in deep waters near the island of Rockall. Reports are coming in of damage to the mounds and reefs by oil prospectors and trawlers dragging nets (快猫短视频, 2 March, p 14).
Elliot Morley, the fisheries minister, tells me that steps are in hand to extend the scope of the European Union鈥檚 habitats directive. This requires that designated special areas of conservation (SACs) are to be protected against significant deterioration. However, at present the directive only applies to SACs on land and within the boundaries of territorial waters around Britain determined by the Conservation (Natural Habitats etc.) Regulations 1994. Now the push is on to extend the regulations beyond 12 nautical miles. The aim is to draw up the necessary regulations later in the year, Morley said.
As part of this process, the government鈥檚 Joint Nature Conservation Committee has been commissioned to identify and agree relevant habitats and species in the zone falling between 12 and 200 nautical miles from the coastline. It will also refine habitat definitions and collate known data. The JNCC will report shortly to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Morley said the committee will discuss its findings with other EU member states at a conference this summer.
I trust Britain鈥檚 home-grown coral reefs will soon gain the status they deserve.