§ Mr. Thorneasked the Secretary of State for Employment whether a statistical correlation between atmospheric conditions which are likely to contain CS2 and H2S and the incidence of coronary heart disease among workers who have worked in such atmospheric conditions has been established; and, if so, what steps his Department has taken in regard thereto.
§ Mr. Harold WalkerThese atmospheric conditions are likely to occur in the manufacture of viscose rayon. A study of three factories by Tiller, Schilling and Morris, published in theBritish Medical Journal in December 1968, found an excess of coronary disease mortality 492W in the mid-1940s, but this excess fell steadily until it was only slight in 1958–62; the risk was thought possibly to have arisen from wartime conditions, diminishing with improving ventilation and the installation of modern churns, but further studies were recommended. My Department's Employment Medical Advisory Service began in 1969 a prospective mortality study of workers in two factories who have been exposed to CS2 and H2S since 1945. There are as yet insufficient data to form any conclusion, and final results will not be available for some considerable time.