The Tottenham pub
23rd April 2003
The first of our new ‘rapid response’ sciBArs, the Designer Babies event was run in a very central pub on Oxford Street. The event was organised over the course of two weeks.
Dr Patricia (Trisha to her friends and sciBAr attendees) Macnair, who is a BBC Health Journalist and Advisor to the Progress Educational Trust was our speaker.
The event received some media interest, in the form of a radio interview with Dr Macnair on Wednesday morning by Sunrise, London’s Asian radio network. The interview raised interesting questions on why we choose to run events in pubs – particularly in this case, as the Hashmi family are Muslim as are many sufferers of thalassaemia, and so would not choose to attend events in pubs.
Trisha talked about the ethics of selecting embryos for implantation by their genetic characteristics, setting the theme in context of the recent media interest in the Hashmi case. The Hashmi family want to select an embryo for its bone marrow and have a child to help their son Zain who suffers from thalassaemia.
The debate was interesting and running the event was useful in showing us how quickly we can organise rapid response events. Overall, a success!