Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review

Laura Trott Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

I thank the hon. Lady for her ardent campaigning on this issue. I can only say again that I have absolute sympathy with the families on whose behalf she has been campaigning, but once again I refer to my earlier answer: owing to pending legal action I cannot comment on Primodos.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

This report was an incredibly difficult read, but what one of the things that stuck with me most is the guilt that so many mothers have felt for taking drugs that inadvertently harm their babies. I would like to echo what is said in the report: this was not your fault. Please can the Minister reassure all pregnant women across the country and the House that action has been taken to improve the monitoring of drugs used during pregnancy?

[Ms Dorries]

I thank my hon. Friend for her comment. She is absolutely right. The report is entitled “First Do No Harm”, and we here have to do some good in response to it. Work is being undertaken—the all-party group for valproate and other anti-epileptic drugs in pregnancy works incredibly hard. It is about getting information out there. For some women with epilepsy, sodium valproate is the only drug that works, and the pregnancy prevention programme works alongside this. As I have said, I cannot comment on Primodos, but work is ongoing. We have seen a decline in the number of pregnant epileptic women taking sodium valproate. That decline needs to be driven down even further, in tandem with the pregnancy prevention programme, but my hon Friend is absolutely right. I hope that nobody ever has to come to the Dispatch Box again to discuss a report such as the Cumberlege report and have to apologise for what happened, with the glaring inconsistences in treatment that has been provided to those women who have not received the information they should have received when taking those drugs.