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Personally, I do not favour banning boxing. Had I not had some training
in the art as a teenager, my encounter with a mugger on a dark September
night, just after the Commons’ debate on war in the Gulf back in 1990, could
have ended catastrophically. A recent ‘In Brief’ note brought back such
memories (12 February). It stated that the French National Academy of Medicine,
in a report on Aids and Sport, recommended that HIV tests should be mandatory
for anyone involved in physical contact sports in which injuries could cause
bleeding.

Sports minister Iain Sproat says that the risk of contracting HIV infection
from blood contact in a boxing ring was low. Under the British Boxing Board
of Control’s medical regulations, it is mandatory for all professional
boxers licensed in Britain to be tested regularly for HIV. Overseas boxers
participating in contests here must be tested prior to an event. The BBBC’s
medical panel regularly reviews the issue of HIV, said Sproat.

* * *

William Waldegrave, the science minister, is a friendly man, who believes
in having good relations with his political opponents, just as I do. But
for all our chat and correspondence, he has never before asked me to mention
a particular point in Thistle Diary. Last week, he broke this rule. Obviously
concerned at Andy Coghlan’s article on the possible privatisation of Britain’s
research institutes (This Week, 22 January), Waldegrave wrote to me saying
that he had had the pleasure of visiting the Medical Research Council’s
Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge on more than one occasion,
and was most impressed with what he had seen. Coghlan had reported that
the laboratory’s eminent head, Aaron Klug, strongly opposed privatisation
of institutes such as his.

The LMB, Waldegrave said, had a record of international excellence and
was a fine example of a council research unit. He added that he did not
believe there was any reason to interfere with it.

So on this occasion, I am happy to do what a minister asks.

* * *

Having benefited recently from four pints of the stuff in the course
of a major operation for a hip replacement, I was more than a little alarmed
to find Debora MacKenzie questioning the safety of Europe’s blood supplies
(Focus, 15 January). I sought a comforting answer from the Department of
Health.

Junior health minister Tom Sackville replied, saying that there is
no suitable test for hepatitis A that would identify infectious donors.
In Britain, all blood donations are screened for hepatitis B surface antigen,
and antibodies to hepatitis C and HIV 1 and 2. He went on to add that public
reaction in Britain to the events in Germany is un-derstandable if the public
is unaware of the safeguards that are in place to ensure the safety of both
imported blood products and the blood products manufactured here. The system
of batch release in Britain, Sackville said, is specifically designed to
reduce the possibility of any infection which might occur due to error early
in the screening process. Fractionated blood products have further safeguards
in that the processes include steps to kill any viruses present.