§ Ms CorstonTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will make a statement indicating the total number of cases in(a) the United Kingdom and (b) the world of human veno-occlusive liver disease attributable directly to comfrey consumption; and what percentage of the total incidence of this condition these figures represented in the years in which they arose.
§ Mr. SackvilleThis information is not available centrally. However, table 15, pages 184–191, of the World Health Organisation's "Environmental Health Criteria 80", 1988, lists cases of pyrrolizidine alkaloid poisoning and human reports of veno-occlusive disease from the United Kingdom and many other countries. All these cases are linked to the consumption of plants, including comfrey, which contain the toxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids. The Committee on the Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment, in its recent statement on the safety-in-use of comfrey, refers to an additional two cases of veno-occlusive disease reported since 1988, one in the USA and one in New Zealand.
Copies of the World Health Organisation publication, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food's analysis of comfrey products, the advice of the Committee on the Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment and the Food Advisory Committee together with a draft information note are available in the Library.