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| SPEAKER |
| Dr Evan Harris MP |
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Oxford West and Abingdon
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MEETING
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December 2008 |
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| BIOGRAPHY |
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Dr Evan Harris has been MP for Oxford West and Abingdon since 1997. He has served as Liberal Democrat shadow Health Secretary and is currently science spokesman. He serves on Select Committees dealing with Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills and with Human Rights . He has been an elected member of the BMA's medical ethics committee for 10 years. Prior to entering Parliament he worked firstly as a hospital doctor in internal medicine in Liverpool and Oxford, and then in Public Health medicine. He was a member of the Central Oxford Research Ethics Committee for 5 years. He has a particular interest in evidence-based policy-making and health-care and helped to campaign for amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008.
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| TALK |
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Glass half-empty: Unfinished business from the Human Embryology Act
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| DESCRIPTION |
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Evan will reflect on some of the important scientific matters left unresolved during the long parliamentary journey of the recent Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, as well as some of the provisions in the Act which may stifle innovation. These include whether it will be permissible to use embryonically-derived stem cells in therapy (as opposed to research) when the original embryos concerned were derived and used under a research licence, and even whether it will be permissible to use embryonic stem cells derived from embryos where the master cell line was derived with a different research purpose in mind or with no specific research purpose. Another threat concerns the regulatory burden affecting work on gametes where parthenogenetic embryos may be created adventitiously and which will be a criminal offence without an embryology licence even when unintended and incidental. What is the future for work on stem cell derived gametes when the Act criminalises any attempt to use them in clinical trials treating infertility? Evan will also present an analysis of the voting records in the House of Commons broken down by political party and discuss the prospects for stem cell research after a change of Government.
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MEDIA
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Audio
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Video
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