GMC re-open investigation into infant research
Medical watchdogs are due to re-open an investigation into controversial research believed to have been relied on by experts in a number of cases in the Family Courts.
The move was ordered following a Court of Appeal decision, by a two-to-one majority, that the General Medical Council should look again at its decision to reject parental complaints about experiments carried out on sick premature babies in the 1990s.
The family leading the complaint told the Court that they had written to the GMC claiming that treatment by three paediatric specialists had led to the death of their two-day old daughter and brain damage to her sister.
The parents say that they did not give their proper informed consent, only finding out in 1996 that their daughters had been given the controversial treatment, known as CNEP, four years earlier.
The trials, carried out in the Midlands, involved placing babies in tanks with the aim of helping them breathe without the need for traditional ventilation.
Handing down their ruling, two of the three Appeal Judges said that it was only fair that the GMC Panel be reconstituted to do the job that it had so far failed to do. The dissenting judge said that he had not forgotten the tragedy the family faced but thought the passage of time had put it beyond the ability of the law to help.
The Hearing is due to start in May.