Health: Brittle Bone Society

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I should be more than happy to see the noble Lord and representatives of the Brittle Bone Society to discuss those matters. I am well aware of the issue he raises. I understand that when an application was made to designate specialised services for children with brittle bone disease as a national specialised service, no similar case was made for adult services. However, if the society or leading clinicians in this field now feel that an application should be made, we would be pleased to refer it to the Advisory Group for National Specialised Services against the normal criteria.

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, given that osteogenesis imperfecta is a genetic disorder and that real progress in proactive treatment for sufferers will require progress in genetic medicine, is my noble friend reassured that we retain in this country sufficient researchers, funding and facilities to ensure that sufferers from osteogenesis imperfecta and their families can look to research from this country to see progress in proactive treatment rather than simply to elsewhere, particularly the United States of America?

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is absolutely right. As he knows, the UK is one of the pioneers of genetic research; it takes a lead role in the international human genome project and its application to medicine. The human genome project has sequenced the 25,000 or so genes that make us human and research is now looking at how groups of genes interact not only with each other but with environmental factors to cause disease. We remain absolutely committed to genetics research and aim to make the UK the best place in the world for that research to continue. If there are proposals relating to this specific condition, my department will be very pleased to receive them.