Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has (a) conducted and (b) is aware of any research into whether women and children in any (i) post code and (ii) county area were disproportionately affected by hormone pregnancy testing.

The Department has not conducted research into whether women and children in any post code or county area were disproportionately affected by hormone pregnancy testing, nor is it aware of published scientific research on this topic.

Hormone Pregnancy Tests were available from 1958-1978. The Commission on Human Medicines Expert Working Group on Hormone Pregnancy Tests reviewed all the available evidence on the possible association between exposure in pregnancy to hormone pregnancy tests and adverse outcomes in pregnancy. The Group concluded that, taking all aspects into consideration, the available evidence did not support a causal association between the use of hormone pregnancy tests during early pregnancy and birth defects or miscarriage.

The Government’s priority, as always, is the safety of patients. The Expert Working Group made a number of forward-looking recommendations to further strengthen the scientific evidence which supports safety monitoring of medicines in pregnancy and current focus is on implementing these recommendations.