SHOULD the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act preclude the selection of an embryo as a tissue match for a seriously ill sibling, where the embryo itself is not at risk of inheriting the condition (快猫短视频, 10 August, p 3)? I asked health ministers.
Hazel Blears, the public health minister, said that the question had risen after the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority rejected a licence application for a tissue match case this summer. Doctors and parents wanted to produce a tissue-matched baby whose umbilical cord blood could be given to its sibling who suffers from a rare debilitating genetic blood disorder. However, the HFEA had decided back in December 2001, that to allow tissue typing in conjunction with pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) for a serious disease, each case must be considered individually.
The authority decided that it would be ethically unacceptable to use PGD for tissue-typing alone where the embryos created would not be at risk of an inherited disease. After taking legal advice, it drew up a list of criteria that must be fulfilled for a licence to be granted. Had a licence been granted in the blood disorder case, the HFEA could have been accused of allowing an embryo to be put through an unnecessary procedure that could harm it.
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Such comments left me musing on 快猫短视频鈥檚 claim that the 1990 Act is out of date. Perhaps! Certainly ministers will have to carefully monitor scientific developments in assisted reproduction to ensure that the legislation covers them effectively.
IF Britain were hit by anything like the floods in Prague this summer, responsibility for enacting government policy would fall squarely on Elliot Morley鈥檚 shoulders.
For six years, this excellent, under-promoted junior minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has been responsible for flooding and coastal defence. I asked him about the government鈥檚 flood protection and disaster recovery plans.
Morley replied that these include the provision of new or improved flood defences. Since the floods of 2000, DEFRA has approved 274 new flood and coastal schemes at a cost of 拢386 million. Inland flood defences have been reinstated and communities are now as well defended as before. Some 1.6 million people now receive the Floodline service 鈥� 332,000 more than in autumn 2000, with big improvements in its capacity and cover. Local authorities get much stronger guidance to help prevent development in areas at risk of flooding. The Environment Agency鈥檚 initial report suggests that authorities have a much better understanding of flood risks when they plan to develop land. DEFRA hopes that increasing familiarity with the guidelines will lead to far fewer developments in high-risk areas. It is also reviewing the funding and administrative arrangements for flood and coastal defence. 鈥淚 hope soon to announce the conclusions of that review, which will aim to ensure effective sourcing, targeting and delivery of defences,鈥� said the minister.
After the dire floods that swept through huge areas of Europe in 2002, any government seeming to lack foresight in such matters is likely to be severely punished in future elections 鈥� and rightly so.
