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Government advisers in Britain have launched a public consultation process to tease out the acceptable uses of new cloning techniques. The consultation document, prepared jointly by the Human Genetic Advisory Commission and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, draws a clear distinction between reproductive cloning (that is, creating genetically identical human beings) and “therapeutic” cloning, whereby early embryos could be created to develop new treatments or to further scientific knowledge. Under the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, the creation of cloned babies is forbidden in Britain and carries a criminal sentence. But …

Highly disputed research claiming to show that damage caused by thalidomide can be passed on to children caused a media storm this month. Hilary Bower asks whether journalists were to blame or whether the research should never have been published in the first place Thalidomide—the drug that seared heartbreaking images of children born with deformed limbs into the collective Western psyche in the 1960s—was back in the news with banner headlines recently. What put it there was a press conference convened by the victims' support group to highlight “new” research which claims to show that thalidomide damages DNA and causes its devastating deformities to be passed on to offspring. Though neither the claim nor, in fact, the research by Australian scientist Dr William McBride is new—it was …

New technologies that make laboratory tests and results immediately available to patients in primary care have leapt far ahead of concrete data on benefits, an expert review group claims. The report from the NHS Research and Development Health Technology Assessment Group, which provides doctors with evidence based assessments of the cost, effectiveness, and impact of new technologies, concluded that there was “little evidence to support the general introduction of near patient testing in preference to existing laboratory …

Appetite suppressant drugs should be prescribed as a last resort and only to patients who are clinically obese and respond rapidly to them, say new guidelines designed to crack down on the inappropriate use of slimming drugs. The report, compiled by an expert working party of the Royal College of Physicians of London, concludes that treatment with anti-obesity drugs is appropriate only for people with a body mass index greater than 30 who fail to reduce their weight by 10% after three months determined effort with diet, exercise, and behavioural change. Drugs for obesity …

Two pilots schemes are to test whether a national screening programme for the sexually transmitted disease caused by Chlamydia trachomatis should be introduced in Britain. The launch of the projects, which involve opportunistic screening by GPs and family planning clinics, follows a report by Department of Health experts who believe the infection is spreading exponentially, particularly among young sexually active people. Largely asymptomatic, C trachomatis infects men and women equally but has more severe long term consequences for women. It is thought to be the principal preventable cause of pelvic inflammatory disease, which is strongly linked to infertility, ectopic pregnancy, and chronic pelvic pain. Some studies have shown pelvic inflammatory disease to be a causal factor in 50% of female infertility. Launching the £0.5m …

A damning report on cleft lip and palate repair has forced British surgeons to confront a longstanding disagreement over which specialty should carry out the technically challenging surgery. After investigating 297 children aged 5 and 277 aged 12 who had all undergone cleft repair in Britain, the Clinical Standards Advisory Group found that two out of five had poor dental bite, less than a third had a good lip appearance at age 12, and under half could speak with normal intelligibility at that age. The group's committee said that of the 57 units currently carrying out cleft palate repair, only six …

The spread of cancer into the axilla in patients with breast cancer can be accurately predicted from the health of a single node, Italian oncologists have claimed after encouraging results from research into a new technique that could save thousands of women from unnecessary surgery. Using a new radiographic procedure to find a “sentinel” node in the armpit, researchers from the European Institute of Oncology in Milan correctly assessed the …