§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what further consideration has been given to the establishment of an ethics committee for experiments involving animals at the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment, Porton Down.
§ Mr. HanleyThis is a matter delegated to the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment under its framework document. I have therefore asked the chief executive to reply direct to the hon. Member.
Letter from Graham Pearson to Mr. Harry Cohen, dated 16 December 1993:
1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking what further consideration has been given to the establishment of an ethics committee for experiments involving animals at the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment, Porton Down (Question 17, Order Paper 14 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.2. Our present arrangements for the identification and scrutiny of proposed animal experimentation at the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment, Porton Down demonstrate that we have an essentially independent review of all proposals for animal experiments outside the line management chain which provides us with many, if not all, of the advantages of an Ethics Committee for animal experiments.3. Under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act of 1986, CBDE is required to seek both personal and project licenses. We have just completed the first five year review of the project licenses and this has been accomplished without any difficulties although we recognise that the project licenses are now being drawn up in a more stringent way. The Home Office Inspectorate, supported by the Animal Procedures Committee, provides an independent review of our work with animals. We also comply with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons cost of practice for named veterinary surgeons employed on scientific procedures establishments and breeding and supplying establishments under the Animal (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986.4. When members of CBDE are considering a new project license, they first discuss the proposed license with their line manager and the Superintendent of their Division to confirm that there is indeed a need for animal experiments and that the information required cannot be obtained by another means. They then draft the experimental protocol that will, if approved, form the basis of the license. The next step is to discuss this with our Named Veterinary Surgeon who is free to bring any concerns she may have to the attention of my Director of Life Sciences or to myself. Our veterinary surgeon provides an independent assessment of the project in which informal discussion may take place with the Home Office Inspectorate. Following this, the project licence application is submitted formally to the Home Office Inspectorate over the signature of my Director of Life Sciences. The Home Office Inspectorate may, it they wish, submit a project license application to its own Animal Procedures Committee. I take a personal interest in all of this as the certificate holder for the Establishment under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 and I review all aspects of our work with animals at six monthly meetings.5. In respect of our consideration as to whether to establish an ethics committee for animal experiments, we are having discussions with experts in academia concerning the pros and cons of an ethics committee; whilst there would be presentational advantages, there would clearly be additional work and potential delay imposed by the introduction of a further review process. We are continuing our discussions and at this stage have not yet decided whether an ethics committee would present significant added value over the present arrangements with the Home Office.
§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many laboratories under the control of his Department have ethics committees for experiments involving animals.
§ Mr. HanleyNone.
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§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence when the Ethics Committee for experiments involving humans at the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment, Porton Down, was first established.
§ Mr. HanleyThis is a matter delegated to the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment under its framework document. I have therefore asked the chief executive to reply direct to the hon. Member.
Letter from Graham Pearson to Mr. Harry Cohen, dated 16 December 1993:
1. Your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Defence asking when the ethics committee for experiments involving humans at the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment, Porton Down, was first established (Question 42, Order Paper, 14 December 1993) has been passed to me to reply as Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment.2. The Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment Ethics Committee was established in July 1991. This Committee follows the guidelines laid down by the Royal College of Physicians of London and its membership includes lay members, members of both sexes from the local community, a nurse and a general medical practitioner.3. The Ethics Committee has subsumed previous arrangements for the ethical review of proposed volunteer studies. For some 30 years, a committee on the safety of human experiments had been set up at this Establishment involving all the medical officers on the staff of the Establishment whose task was to review all the protocols for proposed volunteer studies to ensure that they were as safe as possible; this committee had the right of veto. Following such reviews, protocols were then considered by an ethical sub group of the Medical Committee of the Defence Scientific Advisory Committee which involved independent experts.