§ Mrs. Knightasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what estimate she has made of the number of children suffering from infantile rickets and osteomalacia in the Birmingham area.
§ Dr. OwenInfantile rickets and osteomalacia are not notifiable diseases and no estimate of the number of children suffering from these diseases in Birmingham can, therefore, be made.
There is good evidence, however, that a proportion of the young immigrant population in the United Kingdom, including Birmingham, is affected by a varying degree of vitamin D deficiency which leads to these diseases. The May 1973 edition of the Departmental publication "Health Trends" alerted doctors, health visitors, school nurses and midwives to the existence of the problem and the groups in the population most likely to be deficient in vitamin D so that the population could be told of the risk, the dietary means by which the disorder could be prevented, and how it could be treated.
Further measures recommended by the Panel on Child Nutrition of the Chief Medical Officer's Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy are now under consideration.