HC Deb 21 June 1977 vol 933 cc407-9W
54. Mrs. Renée Short

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services why some area health authorities, for example Bromley Area Health Authority, wishing to produce leaflets giving sound advice to mothers about the sensible feeding of their young children based on the report of the joint working party of the Royal College of Physicians, the British Cardiac Society and the report of the Select Committee on Expenditure about preventive medicine, were discouraged from doing so by his Department; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Moyle

The advice on diet given in the leaflets of the Bromley Area Health Authority was based on the report of the joint working party of the Royal College of Physicians and the British Cardiac Society on the "Prevention of Coronary Heart Disease" published in 1976.

I understand that the main aim of the Bromley Area Health Authority's cam- paign—part of the cost of which it was at one time envisaged might be met from a potentially interested commercial source—was to persuade mothers to cut down the amount of animal fats they give to babies and young children on the grounds that this would reduce the likelihood of heart attacks in later life. I am aware of no evidence that the diet of babies and children has any effect on the subsequent occurrence of heart disease, and my Department was concerned lest the advice in leaflets, widely distributed in support of the campaign, should lead to confusion and alarm, and possibly to malnutrition of children in poor families.

My Department has had no occasion to give similar advice to any other area health authority.

The joint working party's report was designed primarily to give advice to doctors in treating individual patients—although it suggested that its recommendations had wider implications for national food policy. On the subject of partial substitution of saturated fat by polyunsaturated fat, the advice of the working party was in conflict with the report of a panel of the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy on "Diet in Relation to Cardiovascular and Cerevrovascular Disease" published in 1974. Both reports recommend a reduction in total fat in the diet but the panel's report did not recommend any increase in the intake of polyunsaturated fat.

In determining national food policy, the Government rely on the independent advice of the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy and they accepted the advice of the committee's panel that in the present state of knowledge any suggestion or claim to the effect that the incidence of ischaemic heart disease in the United Kingdom, or the death rate from it, would be reduced by a rise in the ratio of polyunsaturated to saturated fatty acids in the diet would be unjustified.

After the publication of the working party's report, the panel's advice was considerd again by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy and confirmed. I have noted the comments and recommendations of the Expenditure Committee on diet and related matters and in particular on the question of the substitution of polyunsaturated for saturated fat and am arranging for these to be considered at the next meeting of the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy.