HC Deb 12 June 1991 vol 192 cc556-7W
Mr. Paice

To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he expects to publish the report of the independent expert group set up in March 1990 to investigate whether the emission of toxic gases from fungal growth on cot mattresses could be a cause of cot deaths; and if he will make a statement.

Mrs. Virginia Bottomley

The report is published today by HMSO and copies have been placed in the Library. The independent expert working group concluded that the hypothesis that toxic gases evolved from chemicals in cot mattresses are a cause of sudden infant death syndrome is not supported by experimental evidence.

The group recommended that, despite the absence or evidence to implicate toxic materials used as fillers or fire retardants in cot furnishings, as a matter of prudence, the need for such additives should be reconsidered. If antimony trioxide is used as the fire retardant, only material with the lowest possible levels of arsenic contaminant should be used.

The Department of Trade and Industry will keep under review the use of potentially toxic materials in cot furnishings.

As an incidental finding to the work to investigate the hypothesis the expert working group noted that cot mattresses used by healthy babies and those used by babies who had died from sudden infant death syndrome were contaminated by a number of micro-organisms including some which were potentially pathogenic. There were differences in both the types and the level of contamination. They were unable to draw conclusions from these incidental findings. They recommended that specific investigation of the significance of the findings of microbial contamination take place.

The chief medical officer has asked a group of experts to advise him on research to determine the significance of the microbiological contamination.

I am most grateful to the independent expert group and its chairman, Professor Paul Turner, for producing such a comprehensive and carefully considered report. They were supported in this by some very detailed analytical research from both the International Mycological Institute at Kew and the Laboratory of the Government Chemist.