Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the outcome of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's (HFEAs) comparisons between the development of embryos generated by pronuclear transfer using normally-fertilised human oocytes and that of normal ICSI-fertilised human oocytes was; when and for what reasons those experiments were originally deemed by the HFEA's expert review panel in the publication Scientific review of the safety and efficacy of methods to avoid mitochondrial disease through assisted conception, published in April 2011, to be critical before the technique could be assessed as safe to use clinically; and in which open access journal the relevant findings of that research were available immediately on publication following peer-review.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has advised that the outcomes of the Expert Panel’s comparison, based on unpublished findings made available to the Panel, are outlined at paragraph 2.2.5 of the Panel’s 2013 report and paragraph 3.4.3 of the Panel’s 2014 report, which are available on the HFEA’s website at:

http://www.hfea.gov.uk/8806.html

and

http://www.hfea.gov.uk/8807.html

The reasons for deeming “pronuclear transfer using normally-fertilised human oocytes and development compared to normal ICSI (Intracytoplasmic sperm injection)-fertilised human oocytes” to be critical are outlined at paragraph 4.2.4 of the 2011 report, which are available on the HFEA’s website at:

http://www.hfea.gov.uk/6372.html

The Expert Panel convened by the HFEA first deemed this to be critical in April 2011, when this, its first report, was written.

As stated in the Panel’s 2014 report “Experiments comparing PNT using normally-fertilised human oocytes with normal ICSI fertilised human oocytes appear to be well underway, but their results will need assessing before they can be incorporated into future recommendations.” At the time of writing, to the Panel’s knowledge the findings had not been published in an open access journal.