§ Mr. AmessTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what support his Department has provided for research into thalassaemia. [55505]
§ Ms JowellResearch may be ongoing in individual National Health Service units but there is currently no central funding for research into thalassaemia from either the Department's policy research programme or the central NHS research and development programmes. The Medical Research Council, which is funded by the Office of Science and Technology, commissions most of the Government's research into bio-chemical and clinical issues. The Council is not supporting any thalassaemia research at present but it is always willing to consider 977W sound scientific proposals, in competition with other applications.