§ 2 and 3. Sir J. Lucasasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1)if he will request the Animal Health Trust or similar approved body to conduct an investigation into the effect on meat-eating animals being fed with broth made from the necks of caponised chickens and the period of any resulting sterility after cessation of such a diet;
(2)whether he has examined the evidence sent him by the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South with respect to the effect on meat-eating animals who have been partially fed with broth made from the necks of caponised chickens; and what action he proposes to take as a result.
Mr. AmoryI doubt whether a special investigation into this question is necessary. It is already known that the feeding of chicken necks which contained implants of synthetic oestrogens is dangerous, and a warning is given against the practice in the Ministry's advisory leaflet I am considering whether additional publicity should be given to the warning already issued.
§ Sir J. LucasIs it not important that members of the public who are chicken broth addicts should be warned that this is even more dangerous than nuclear fallout?
Mr. AmoryI am advised that the danger to human beings is very slight. A Question on this subject has been put down to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health.
§ Mr. HastingsCan the right hon. Gentleman give some reference or make a statement on this important question with which many of us are not at all familiar?
Mr. AmoryQuestions concerning risk to health would fall within the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health.
§ 5. Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenportasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will take steps under the Food and Drugs Act to oblige distributors of caponised chickens to indicate whether they have been caponised by the injection of hormone tablets.
Mr. AmoryI am consulting my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health and will write to my hon. and gallant Friend as soon as possible.
§ Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-DavenportDoes my right hon. Friend not agree that if a housewife purchases a cockerel which has been killed early, in the neck of which the hormone pellet is still embedded, and if she then makes a soup or sauce out of the offal, including the head and neck, there must be some danger to the consumer?
Mr. AmoryThe Ministry leaflet to which I referred in answer to an earlier Question makes it clear that there may be some risk to human health. The question in connection with which I am consulting with my right hon. Friend is whether that risk is such as to make it desirable to provide additional safeguards to public health or possibly to make Regulations on the point.