§ Mr. Greville Jannerasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) whether there are any plans for the use 122W Information is collected where a renewal claim is made and rejected. This is shown in the table below, together with the number of awards expiring and the corresponding number of renewal awards made in each year from 1976 to 1980. No information is collected in the case where a recipient does not make a renewal claim.
of genetically manipulated smallpox virus DNA in the work of Professor Dumbell at St. Mary's hospital medical school, London;
(2) whether any action has been taken following the recommendation of the official Shooter committee of inquiry into the smallpox outbreak in Birmingham in 1978 that all smallpox work be removed from centres of population and that, in particular, Professor Dumbell's work at St. Mary's hospital medical school, London, be resited;
(3) if he will take steps to effect the transfer of Professor Dumbell's proposed work with smallpox to a secure laboratory at Porton Down;
(4) whether he is satisfied that any cloned smallpox material transported from Porton Down to St. Mary's hospital medical school, London, would be free of infective virus;
(5) if he will make it his policy that any work on smallpox, particularly that which involves expression of smallpox fragments, should be done in contained laboratories outside centres of population;
(6) whether, in view of low immunity following the eradication of naturally occurring smallpox, he has made any new assessment of the effect of virus escaping from a laboratory;
(7) if he has made any assessment of the danger of the escape of smallpox fragments to persons already infected with other orthodox viruses.
§ Mr. Patrick JenkinIn accordance with the recommendation of the Shooter investigation, all stocks of smallpox virus were removed from St. Mary's hospital medical school to the Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research at Porton Down in November 1979. It is certainly my view that any work on smallpox virus should be in contained laboratories outside centres of population. Extraction of fragments of the genetic material—DNA—of the smallpox virus is being done at CAMR Porton and the cloned material does not contain the virus. The scientific advice I have received is that the fragments of DNA themselves carry no risk of infection even if they were in contact with other related viruses.
Professor Dumbell recently made an application to the Genetic Manipulation Advisory Group which would entail the examination of cloned bacterial plasmids into which fragments of variola DNA have been incorporated. I am advised that such work carries no risk of smallpox 123W infection, but I understand that Professor Dumbell now plans to make his examination at CAMR Porton Down, not at St. Mary's.
If in the future any such work is contemplated on DNA fragments at St. Mary's, Professor Dumbell will first be in touch with the Genetic Manipulation Advisory Group and with my Department.
It has not been thought necessary to make any new assessment of measures needed to combat an escape of virus from a high containment laboratory.