§ Lord Kennetasked Her Majesty's Government:
What will be the cost of the inquiry into the possibility that toxic gases released from PVC mattresses are implicated in cot deaths, and why, when parents are being reassured that there is no cause for concern, the Government have decided that there is sufficient cause for concern to warrant research now being funded.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Hooper)Our present estimate of the cost of servicing the expert group called together by the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Donald Acheson, is £ 10,000.
In his announcement Sir Donald said that sudden infant death syndrome was almost certainly due to many causes and these were little understood. Any new hypothesis warranted careful consideration, but this needed to be done in a way which, on the one hand, avoided alarming parents unnecessarily before claims could be properly assessed and, on the other, avoided raising hopes that a preventable cause of sudden infant death had been found.
We believe the action we have taken strikes the right balance.
564WA