§ 14. Mr. Wallaceasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make a statement on his Department's policy on the incidence of leukaemia around nuclear power stations.
§ Mr. NewtonThe Department has established the independent expert Committee on the Medical Aspect of Radiation in the Environment to advise the Government on such matters. COMA RE has been asked to advise on68W the position in relation to Scottish nuclear sites and the Aldermaston/Burghfield area. More recently it has been asked to advise on the recent Office of Population Censuses and Surveys report on cancer incidence and mortality in the vicinity of nuclear installations in England and Wales. We await the Committee's advice.
COMARE was set up in response to one of the recommendations in Sir Douglas Black's report on Sellafield. Action has been taken also to implement the other recommendations in that report. A small area statistics unit is being set up under Professor Geoffrey Rose at the London School of Hygiene, to study statistics on the distribution of disease amongst small areas and the interpretation of such statistics, and to study reports of unusual clusters of disease in the neighbourhood of industrial installations. The epidemiological studies recommended in Cumbria are well on their way towards completion.