HC Deb 30 January 1941 vol 368 c700W
Mr. Leach

asked the Minister of Health whether the Central Council for Health Education is assisting the Ministry in making known the claimed benefits of diphtheria immunisation; and whether, as a speaker from that body recently stated, in a broadcast talk, that immunised children are certain not to die of diphtheria, he will take steps to give equal publicity to the fact that there have been fatal cases of diphtheria in inoculated children at Manchester, South Shields, Liverpool, Cardiff and Bristol, and also towns in Scotland?

Mr. M. MacDonald

The Central Council for Health Education, which represents many professional and health-promoting bodies, has for some time been helping local authorities to encourage the immunisation of children against diphtheria. As regards the second part of the Question, I did not hear the talk to which the hon. Member refers, but it is an accepted fact amongst the authorities that a child who has been adequately immunised against diphtheria by a full course of inoculations of toxoid is much less likely to contract diphtheria, and still less likely to die from the disease, than an un-inoculated child.