HC Deb 25 June 1974 vol 875 cc444l-m W
Mr. Woof

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what advice she received from the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council on the question of scheduling emphysema as an industrial disease for people working, or who have worked, in the coal mining industry.

Mr. O'Malley

The terms of reference for the council's review of pneumoconiosis and byssinosis on which it reported last year did not include the question of scheduling emphysema as an industrial disease. The report did, however, draw attention to the difficulties which stand in the way of prescribing diseases like emphysema and bronchitis because of their high incidence among the general adult population and the impossibility of distinguishing clinically those cases which might be due to occupation.