Cartwright Inquiry

The Cartwright Inquiry was a Commission of Inquiry held in New Zealand from 1987 – 1988. It was commissioned by the then Minister of Health, Michael Bassett to investigate the alleged malpractice of Associate Professor Herbert Green, a gynaecology and obstetrics specialist. The inquiry was headed by then District Court Judge Silvia Cartwright, later High Court Justice, Dame, and Governor-General of New Zealand.

A 1984 medical paper by a colposcopist, pathologist, gynaecologist and a statistician, described a study of 948 women who had been diagnosed with carcinoma in situ (CIS) at New Zealand's National Women's Hospital from 1955 to 1976. The authors of the paper divided the women who had presented at the hospital with a positive smear into two groups – those whose smears had reverted to normal after two years and those who continued to have a positive smear, regardless of treatment. Those who continued to have a positive smear had a higher rate of invasion to cervical cancer, confirming the authors' preference for early intervention. There was by the 1980s an extensive international literature questioning whether early intervention was necessary or was over-treatment, causing more harm than good.

Two prominent women's health advocates and writers, Sandra Coney and Phillida Bunkle, published an expose relating to late or non-treatment of CIS (carcinoma in situ) in Metro Magazine in June 1987, taking the title from a 1986 letter in the New Zealand Medical Journal by Professor David Skegg, a Public Health expert with a strong interest in screening condemning what he called the "Unfortunate Experiment". Coney and Bunkle misinterpreted the 1984 paper as describing a prospective rather than a retrospective study. This expose of supposed mistreatment led to widespread public outcry and the then Minister of Health, Michael Bassett calling an inquiry.

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