a). Dr Petra Adams, the Director of the Centre, talks to a reporter:

It’s remarkable to think that since 1950 influenza (1)______(claim) more than 50,000 lives in this country, and in 1957 alone around 6,000 people (2)_____(die). But over the last 20 years we at the Centre (3)______(make) considerable progress on understanding the illness. We (4) _____ (produce) over a hundred books and articles reporting the results of our research and in 1995 they (5)_______(award) the Nobel Prize for medicine to one of my colleagues. In our more recent work we (6)______(look) into the effects of influenza on heart disease and we (7)_______(also explore) a possible link between climate change and the recent increase in the number of cases of influenza. It is a tragedy that the government (8)_______(make) this decision now.



b). Kenneth Sparks, the Opposition spokesperson for science, talks to a television interviewer:

The previous government (1)______(invest) huge amounts of money into the Centre and I think it’s terrible that present government (2)________(announce) this cut when the number of cases of influenza (3)_____(increase). The Centre (4)_______(run) successfully for many years. But this decision is just typical of this government. It (5)_____(neglect) health research ever since it was elected, and (6)_______(cut) back on spending on science generally. Although the government says the cut is necessary because of the recent world economic problems, I (9)_____(speak) to the Minister about this yesterday and (10)_______(also write) to the Prime Minister demanding that the decision should be reversed.