I read the opinion piece published in your newspaper by Dr Pierre Mallia on 11 November, about the proposed Embryology Bill, and communicated the issue to my colleagues. We dare say that he is being very presumptuous and assuming, not to say irresponsible and unprofessional, in stating that the Bill was written by a priest when this is categorically not true.

The proposed Embryology Bill is the fruit of a long dialogue which started in the Parliamentary Committee for Social Affairs in 2005 and which was debated for more than one and a half years. After the last general election, the Parliamentary Secretary for Health, Joe Cassar, asked the newly reconstituted Bioethics Consultative Committee (BCC) to work on a Bill that would be able to act as a basis for discussion for a new Act in parliament to protect the Human Embryo and regulate IVF.

The BCC set to work hard immediately, as can be attested to by all the members meeting several times a month until a document was agreed on. After several months of debate, this was presented to the Minister of Health, John Dalli, on 31 March, 2009.

The document produced was a joint effort by all the members of the BCC and definitely not the product of one or even two persons. I cannot understand what behove Dr Mallia, who is not a member of the BCC, to make such a preposterous and uninformed statement.

Dr Michael Asciak MD

Chairman, Bioethics Consultative Committee