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World Health Assembly winds up on a sober note
POLICY AND PEOPLE
US firm claims it can “sequence human genome in 3 years” the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Energy, Venter said that the company expects to “drive down the cost” of sequencing to 10 cents per base-pair. The new genome sequence will be available free of charge quarterly in a public database, Venter said. “There is no plan whatsoever . . . to restrict access to data”, he added. The company does , however, plan to use the data to develop a fee-for-service database and to identify genes to patent for use in drug development. Francis Collins, the National Human Genome Research Institute’s director, said that the government’s sequencing programme may need to reformulate its plans because of the commercial venture. Collins Science Photo Library
equencing the human genome within 3 years is the intention of a joint private venture announced on May 9 by the Institute for Genomic Research’s Craig Venter and the Perkin–Elmer Corporation. Venter and Perkin–Elmer have signed letters of intent to form a new company to do the sequencing. The existing US National Institutes of Health and Department of Energy humangenome sequencing The race is on effort is scheduled to be completed in 2005. The new company will use Perkin–Elmer’s “ultra-high throughput” analysers to produce 200 000 sequences and 100 million base-pairs of DNA sequence each day. Speaking at a May 11 press conference jointly convened by Venter, Perkin–Elmer,
S
World Health Assembly winds up on a sober note
A
fter more than 2 days of heated discussions, the 51st World Health Assembly (Geneva, Switzerland, May 11–16) avoided a split by a compromise on the issue of funding for WHO’s six regions. Proposals to switch a proportion of funding—especially from southeast Asia—to Africa, with some going also to Eastern Europe and former communist states, were strenuously opposed by developing countries. In what was described as “a landmark decision”, the Assembly finally agreed that funding for the 28 “least-developed countries” would not be affected, and that the reduction for any region would not exceed 3% per year over a 6-year period. WHA president, Rahdial alMousawi, Health Minister of Bahrain, spoke of “the enormous tasks ahead of us” in combating disease, promoting health universally, and reducing glaring disparities between rich and poor. Delegates from the 191 member states had earlier adopted a declaration on “Health for all for the 21st century” to supersede WHO’s previous, unrealistic, “Health for all by the year 2000”. Having already indicated that two priorities must be malaria and tobacco, the new Director-General,
1566
Gro Harlem Brundtland, said that the reorganisation of WHO would be focused initially on four areas, although details are not yet available. The areas are: monitoring, rolling back and, where possible eradicating communicable diseases; fighting non-communicable diseases; helping countries build sustainable health systems, “emphasising the situation of women and mothers, so critical in giving children a safe and healthy start in life”; and ensuring that “WHO will speak out for health, back its case with solid evidence and thereby be a better advocate for health towards a broader audience of decision-makers”. Judging by the applause, WHA’s favourite guests were US First Lady Hillary Clinton and Cuban President Fidel Castro. The former made sound sense: “To improve health for all, we must make progress in the fight against poverty; to fight poverty, we must ensure health care for all.” The latter pointed out that, according to UN estimates, “the cost of universal access to basic health-care services would be $25 billion a year—that is 3% of the $800 billion currently devoted to military expenditures”. Alan McGregor
projected that the success of the private operation would not be evaluable for 18 months. Federal officials and the commercial partners emphasised that they wished to cooperate instead of competing. “We’re going to be rapidly scaling up this technology”, Venter said. “We’d like to do this in collaboration and cooperation with all the existing [federal genome sequencing]centres.” Venter said “we expect the assembled sequence to be at least as high a quality” as sequence produced by the federal programme, and the genome will be “completely ordered using back-end sequences and other markers”. But Venter indicated there will be gaps in the data—“roughly 2000 to 5000 small gaps on the order of 58 base-pairs”. “It would be nice to see all the gaps closed”, he noted, adding “this effort will not do that”. Lisa Putman
US Republicans’ bill on abortion travel ban epublican leaders of US Congress on May 12 supported a bill that would make it illegal for anyone other than a parent to transport a minor across state lines to obtain an abortion. The announcement that the bill would be placed on a legislative “fast track” came just days after a meeting between Republicans and leaders of the social conservative movement, who complained that members they helped elect are not addressing issues such as abortion. The Child Custody Protection Act would make it a federal crime to evade state laws requiring parental notification or consent before an under-age girl may have an abortion. But abortion-rights groups charge that the bill would only endanger girls with unintended pregnancies who cannot confide in their parents. The announcement came just days before a ban on certain late-term abortions wreaked havoc in the state of Wisconsin. Although federal legislation on the procedure remains blocked, a state law that went into effect on May 14 prompted virtually every abortion provider in the state to close, since the law is written so broadly it could be used against doctors doing almost every abortion.
R
Julie Rovner
THE LANCET • Vol 351 • May 23, 1998
US firm claims it can “sequence human genome in 3 years” the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Energy, Venter said that the company expects to “drive down the cost” of sequencing to 10 cents per base-pair. The new genome sequence will be available free of charge quarterly in a public database, Venter said. “There is no plan whatsoever . . . to restrict access to data”, he added. The company does , however, plan to use the data to develop a fee-for-service database and to identify genes to patent for use in drug development. Francis Collins, the National Human Genome Research Institute’s director, said that the government’s sequencing programme may need to reformulate its plans because of the commercial venture. Collins Science Photo Library
equencing the human genome within 3 years is the intention of a joint private venture announced on May 9 by the Institute for Genomic Research’s Craig Venter and the Perkin–Elmer Corporation. Venter and Perkin–Elmer have signed letters of intent to form a new company to do the sequencing. The existing US National Institutes of Health and Department of Energy humangenome sequencing The race is on effort is scheduled to be completed in 2005. The new company will use Perkin–Elmer’s “ultra-high throughput” analysers to produce 200 000 sequences and 100 million base-pairs of DNA sequence each day. Speaking at a May 11 press conference jointly convened by Venter, Perkin–Elmer,
S
World Health Assembly winds up on a sober note
A
fter more than 2 days of heated discussions, the 51st World Health Assembly (Geneva, Switzerland, May 11–16) avoided a split by a compromise on the issue of funding for WHO’s six regions. Proposals to switch a proportion of funding—especially from southeast Asia—to Africa, with some going also to Eastern Europe and former communist states, were strenuously opposed by developing countries. In what was described as “a landmark decision”, the Assembly finally agreed that funding for the 28 “least-developed countries” would not be affected, and that the reduction for any region would not exceed 3% per year over a 6-year period. WHA president, Rahdial alMousawi, Health Minister of Bahrain, spoke of “the enormous tasks ahead of us” in combating disease, promoting health universally, and reducing glaring disparities between rich and poor. Delegates from the 191 member states had earlier adopted a declaration on “Health for all for the 21st century” to supersede WHO’s previous, unrealistic, “Health for all by the year 2000”. Having already indicated that two priorities must be malaria and tobacco, the new Director-General,
1566
Gro Harlem Brundtland, said that the reorganisation of WHO would be focused initially on four areas, although details are not yet available. The areas are: monitoring, rolling back and, where possible eradicating communicable diseases; fighting non-communicable diseases; helping countries build sustainable health systems, “emphasising the situation of women and mothers, so critical in giving children a safe and healthy start in life”; and ensuring that “WHO will speak out for health, back its case with solid evidence and thereby be a better advocate for health towards a broader audience of decision-makers”. Judging by the applause, WHA’s favourite guests were US First Lady Hillary Clinton and Cuban President Fidel Castro. The former made sound sense: “To improve health for all, we must make progress in the fight against poverty; to fight poverty, we must ensure health care for all.” The latter pointed out that, according to UN estimates, “the cost of universal access to basic health-care services would be $25 billion a year—that is 3% of the $800 billion currently devoted to military expenditures”. Alan McGregor
projected that the success of the private operation would not be evaluable for 18 months. Federal officials and the commercial partners emphasised that they wished to cooperate instead of competing. “We’re going to be rapidly scaling up this technology”, Venter said. “We’d like to do this in collaboration and cooperation with all the existing [federal genome sequencing]centres.” Venter said “we expect the assembled sequence to be at least as high a quality” as sequence produced by the federal programme, and the genome will be “completely ordered using back-end sequences and other markers”. But Venter indicated there will be gaps in the data—“roughly 2000 to 5000 small gaps on the order of 58 base-pairs”. “It would be nice to see all the gaps closed”, he noted, adding “this effort will not do that”. Lisa Putman
US Republicans’ bill on abortion travel ban epublican leaders of US Congress on May 12 supported a bill that would make it illegal for anyone other than a parent to transport a minor across state lines to obtain an abortion. The announcement that the bill would be placed on a legislative “fast track” came just days after a meeting between Republicans and leaders of the social conservative movement, who complained that members they helped elect are not addressing issues such as abortion. The Child Custody Protection Act would make it a federal crime to evade state laws requiring parental notification or consent before an under-age girl may have an abortion. But abortion-rights groups charge that the bill would only endanger girls with unintended pregnancies who cannot confide in their parents. The announcement came just days before a ban on certain late-term abortions wreaked havoc in the state of Wisconsin. Although federal legislation on the procedure remains blocked, a state law that went into effect on May 14 prompted virtually every abortion provider in the state to close, since the law is written so broadly it could be used against doctors doing almost every abortion.
R
Julie Rovner
THE LANCET • Vol 351 • May 23, 1998