Mrs. Butlerasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what study has been made of the activities, undertaken by the Standing Advisory Committee for Medical Research in the British Caribbean to eradicate malnutrition, for guidance and application in the East African territories under United Kingdom administration.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydThe Standing Advisory Committee for Medical Research in the British Caribbean is charged with the task of advising on the needs for medical research in the British Caribbean and on the means for ensuring that the results of research are applied in practice; and is required to keep under review the facilities for inter-territorial collaboration in medical research. The Secretary of State for the Colonies is represented on the Committee by two members of the Colonial Medical Research Committee and by the Director of Colonial Medical Research. The British Caribbean Committee is closely linked with the Colonial Medical Research Committee whose terms of reference are, inter alia, to advise the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Medical Research Council on all matters of medical research in and for the benefit of the Colonies, and to serve as a focus and clearing house of information.
Research into malnutrition in the Caribbean is being undertaken by the Tropical Metabolism Research Unit working with the Applied Nutrition Research Unit in Jamaica, and at the Faculty of Physiology at the University College of the West Indies. The work 148W at the Tropical Metabolism Research Unit is being carried out under the direction of a member of the staff of the Medical Research Council, the Secretary of which is the Chairman of the Colonial Medical Research Committee.
In East Africa, research work is being done on this problem at the Physiological and Nutritional Research Unit of the East African Medical Research Institute, and at the Medical Research Council's Infantile Malnutrition Research Unit in Uganda, and by the Faculty of Medicine, Makerere College, Uganda.
As in the Caribbean, research in East Africa is conducted under the aegis of a specialist committee, in this case the East African Council for Medical Research, and again, as in the Caribbean, representatives from the Colonial Medical Research Committee attend the annual meetings of this Council, and its Standing Advisory Committee at which the annual progress reports of all research units are presented personally by their Directors and discussed. In addition, the Director of Colonial Medical Research attends these important meetings.
Reports of all medical research activities are carefully considered by the Colonial Medical Research Committee and these reports are condensed and appear annually in Colonial Research, copies of which are distributed to all workers in the field.
It will thus be seen that, with the link between the Medical Research Council and the Colonial Medical Research Committee, all activities are brought to the attention of the various interested participants, and, as a result, there is adequate liaison between similar research in all Colonial territories. Additionally, workers in the various fields meet from time to time in order to discuss their common problems and pass on directly to each other the results of their own activities.