27 - Reproductive ageing and the RCOG

Summary

Sean Kehoe: Thank you very much, Donna. Can I just pick you up on one thing? I am a gynae-oncologist and I remember the first BRCAl testing. The company was based in Scotland, presumably for legal reasons, and we got a letter from them. Essentially, what the woman had to do was sign a form, then get her GP to sign the form saying that she was counselled, and then send the blood away. Of course, anybody could sign it: they were not going back to check. That test disappeared. We got rid of them. I do not know how it was done but there was a lot of noise made. They tried once but I am sure they will come back again …

Donna Dickenson: There is a continual need to keep vigilant, because lots of companies can find similar things.

Diana Mansour: This is really more of comment: in Newcastle, when we recently opened a session for sexually transmitted infection screening in mature men, I asked: ‘What about the mature women?’ They said ‘It is different. The men are getting their infections elsewhere.’ Well, I am sure they are giving it to their wives …

Donna Dickenson: As in your slide, we could show graphically [laughs].

Diana Mansour: Very much so. I was really pleasantly surprised that you actually included that slide. We often think STIs [sexually transmitted infections] are infections only of the young women … purely because of statistics.