21,161 sign petition to save charitable medical research from EU directive

5.00.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 2nd Feb 2004

An all-party group of Hampshire parliamentarians joined the delegation from medical charity Leukaemia Busters to hand in a 21,161 signature petition into Downing Street today (Monday).

The petition calls for charitably-funded research into conditions like childhood leukaemia to be exempted from a costly new EU testing regime. At present, the tough requirements for trials, designed for widely-used drugs, could halt further charity work into small-scale diseases.

The delegation was led by honorary scientific director Dr David Flavell and Dr Bee Flavell from Leukaemia Busters and included Hampshire MEPs Chris Huhne and Roy Perry together with Romsey MP Sandra Gidley and Southampton MPs John Denham and Alan Whitehead.

'The problem is that the big drug companies are not interested in conditions like child leukaemia because few people suffer from them, and they cannot make a profit. But to apply onerous regulation to small-scale charity work risks driving it out of business' said Mr Huhne. 'It is crucial that there is a special provision for these types of diseases'.

Mr Huhne said there were two issues. The first is whether the Commission can apply the EU directive flexibly enough to allow charitable clinical trials, and the second is whether the Department of Health is willing to use that flexibility when it puts the provisions of the directive into British law.

Mr Huhne and Drs Flavell have had high-level meetings in Brussels that suggested that the Commission is unlikely to stand in the way of member states that adopt a flexible approach, so it is now crucial that the British government is similarly sensitive to the problem, said Mr Huhne.

'We do not want any of the usual Whitehall gold-plating, where they add other provisions to what Brussels intends. With good will, and I think we definitely felt that there was good will, we will make progress' said Mr Huhne.

The EU rules in the clinical trials directive are meant to be introduced into British law by May 2004.

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