§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science (1) whether, in the light of the failure of the Medical Research Council's working party on retinitis pigmentosa either to study or call evidence on the methods used by the Opos Eye Clinic, St. Gallen, Switzerland, or to evaluate the success or failure of those methods, she will invite it to undertake a further investigation of this treatment;
(2) whether the evaluation by the Medical Research Council of the success rate of the Opos Eye Clinic, St. Gallen, Switzerland, in the answer to the hon. Member for Grimsby on 17th May, is accurate, in the light of the fact that a combination of methods is used there rather than the one method specified in the answer; and if she will make a statement.
§ Mrs. Shirley WilliamsThe working party's conclusion of the retinitis pigmentosa therapy practised at the Opos Eye Clinic was based on full knowledge of what the treatment involves. The question of any further investigation is a matter for the Medical Research Council. Its scientific judgment, which I accept, is that there is insufficient basis to warrant support of clinical trials of this method of treatment.
§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether, in the light of the three priorities for clinical research identified by the ad hoc working party on retinitis pigmentosa in September 1977, namely (a) a clinical survey in several centres, (b) a better definition of the functional defects of the disease by physiological and psychological techniques, and (c) a search for genetic markers, she will detail the progress made in each of these directions.
§ Mrs. Shirley WilliamsThe Medical Research Council has awarded two grants for a study of abnormal retinal physiology in patients with retinitis pigmentosa and research into the genetic and clinical 387W aspects of the disease. These projects are in line with the first two priorities for clinical research identified by the working party. Work in the third priority area, a search for genetic markers for retinitis pigmentosa is in progress at the Council's clinical and population cytogenetics unit in Edinburgh.