HEFA-1999 Part 1/2nd proof - Human Fertilisation & Embryology ...

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HUMAN FERTILISATION AND EMBRYOLOGY AUTHORITY <strong>1999</strong> ANNUAL REPORT & ACCOUNTS clinics and treatments, and who face a bewildering wall of technical terms, statistical probabilities, and often worrying financial decisions. This year we have fundamentally revised our Patients’ Guide to DI and IVF Clinics, which includes detailed, impartial information about all licensed clinics, the treatments they offer and their success rates. In late 1998 the HFEA and the <strong>Human</strong> Genetics Advisory Commission (HGAC) published a report to Ministers on human cloning. In the report the HFEA repeated its policy that it would not license the use of nuclear replacement for the purpose of reproductive cloning. The Government had also explicitly ruled this out. The HGAC and the HFEA recommended that these safeguards should be recognised as being wholly adequate to forbid human reproductive cloning in the UK. However, we suggested that the Government might wish to consider the possibility of introducing legislation that would explicitly ban human reproductive cloning regardless of the technique used so that this ban would not depend upon the decision of a statutory body (the HFEA), but would itself be enshrined in statute. We also recommended that the Secretary of State for Health should consider specifying in regulations two further purposes for which the HFEA might issue licences for research, so that potential benefits can clearly be explored: firstly, the development of methods of therapy for mitochondrial disease; and, secondly, the development of therapeutic treatments for diseased or damaged tissues or organs. We also recommended that the issues be re-examined in five years’ time in the light of developments and public attitudes towards them. In June of this year the Government announced the creation of a high-level advisory group to consider in more detail the scientific implications of the use of the cloning techniques in embryo research. The HFEA welcomed this move. One must, of course, respect the views of those who believe it is wrong to create embryos outside the body for either treatment or research. Yet we believe that for many years now, a clear majority of both the public and politicians has supported such work, which has enabled many thousands of couples to have children previously denied them. The embryo is the first step to the creation of a human being, and always deserves respect and protection. Both we and the professionals in this field are well aware that we are operating at the outer limits of technology in a field uniquely intimate as well as scientific. In probing the depths of human reproductive biology, decisions and discoveries raise ever more questions. After 30 years of public awareness of embryo research there is more moral and ethical discussion than ever before and a new profession of bio-ethics has emerged. For that reason, and in the light of new vi
CHAIRMAN’S LETTER research and treatment that springs from embryo creation, close regulation will continue to be necessary for the foreseeable future. I am extremely grateful to the HFEA Members and staff for coping with the ever-increasing workload. I would particularly like to pay tribute to those Members who have left the Authority since the last Annual Report: Ruth Chambers, Liz Forgan, David Greggains, Martin Johnson, Richard Jones and Anthony Thiselton. I am sure that their successors will carry on their fine work. Ruth Deech Chairman vii
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Page 4 and 5: Human Fertilisation and Embryology
Page 6 and 7: HUMAN FERTILISATION AND EMBRYOLOGY
Page 11 and 12: The Human Fertilisation and Embryol
Page 13 and 14: CHAPTER 1 THE HUMAN FERTILISATION A
Page 15 and 16: CHAPTER 1 THE HUMAN FERTILISATION A
Page 17 and 18: CHAPTER 2 LICENSING AND AUDIT OF LI
Page 19 and 20: CHAPTER 3 THE CODE OF PRACTICE Duri
Page 21 and 22: CHAPTER 4 COLLECTING AND PROVIDING
Page 35 and 36: Research 5 Research is vital for th
Page 37 and 38: CHAPTER 5 RESEARCH At 31 August 199
Page 39 and 40: CHAPTER 6 POLICY UPDATE AND ISSUES
Page 41 and 42: CHAPTER 6 POLICY UPDATE AND ISSUES
Page 43 and 44: Communications 7 The HFE Act requir
Page 45 and 46: CHAPTER 7 COMMUNICATIONS List of al
Page 47 and 48: Annex 2 LIST OF LICENSED CLINICS (a
Page 49 and 50: Annex 3 LIST OF HFEA INSPECTORS (as
Page 51 and 52: ANNEX 3 LIST OF HFEA INSPECTORS Ann
Page 53 and 54: Professor M H Kaufman Professor of
Page 55 and 56: Henry Leese Professor of Biology, U

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