Without housing benefit or income support homeless 16- to 18-year-olds are led into risky and damaging lifestyles as the only

Without housing benefit or income support, homeless 16- to 18-year-olds are led into risky and damaging lifestyles as the only way to support themselves. The alert led to the review of almost 4,000 screenings.About 2,000 women called helplines set up by the RDE Trust, the Exeter and Plymouth Nuffield hospitals where Dr Brennan also worked, and a private hospital in Torquay where both consultants also worked.The women at the centre of the alert were among 60,000 screened by the EDBSS over a five-year period.The Calman report is expected to say that the two consultants used outmoded and inappropriate treatment for abnormal test results.Possible future changes could include increasing the number of mammograms by reducing checks from every three to every two years. They say that the availability of genetic testing will lead inevitably to prenatal evaluation of people's intelligence - and in some cases to their being needlessly labelled subnormal.Yet the results themselves are controversial. Frank Dobson, the Secretary of State for Health, ordered the review of the East Devon Breast Screening Service by a team of experts led by the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Kenneth Calman, following concerns over the interpretation of breast scans of nine women, two of whom have died. The six-year-old EDBSS is managed by the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital Healthcare NHS Trust, which announced in June that its two consultants, Dr John Brennan, employed by the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital, and Dr Graham Urquhart, from Torbay hospital, were to have further training in breast screening.The alert began after NHS medical staff raised concerns over 12 mammography films of women screened by the service.The women developed cancer between the initial screening and before routine recall.During hospital treatment, NHS medical staff expressed concern about the interpretation of tiny calcium deposits shown on the original mammogram film, and asked the NHS National Breast Screening Programme in Nottingham to review the 12 scans.Problems were identified with interpretation of films of nine of the women, two of whom later died. Jonathan Glover, a philosopher at Oxford University, says: "Anyone can ignore a new piece of science for a certain amount of time, but then the problems start to catch up with us.

This raises huge and important issues which, in a democracy, we should be discussing now.". Two consultants at the centre of a breast screening alert are expected to be criticised in a report to the Commons today. Glenda Cooper examines the lessons learned from a health crisis which affected thousands of women. Mutations in this gene are linked to increased incidence of liver cancer, leading other scientists to conclude that it acts as a tumour suppressor in its normal role.It has never been associated before with intelligence. But on a Channel 4 Equinox programme to be broadcast tonight, Professor Plomin says that his six-year study shows that IGF2R occurs more frequently in smart children than average ones.David King, editor of GenEthics News and the instigator of the "Campaign for Real Intelligence", has sought to stop MRC funding for Professor Plomin's work.

"It will make people believe that everything we are is determined by our genes," he said.If confirmed, however, Professor Plomin's work seems certain to reopen a long-running argument. They have not yet been published in any scientific journal, though it is understood they are being considered by Nature. That means they have not been reviewed independently for any faults in the testing used.Furthermore, the gene identified by Professor Plomin, which is called IGF2R, on chromosome 6, has long been known to genetic researchers. But they have identified it as being involved in some way in prenatal growth - hence its name, "insulin-like growth factor 2 receptor". The discovery of a gene which appears to contribute to general intelligence is a finding which Professor Robert Plomin says marks a breakthrough in scientific endeavour. But Professor Plomin, an American based at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, faces opposition from both scientific and other groups who say that his work is unethical and should not be continued.