§ Mr. SkinnerTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if her Department will undertake a study of the link between cancer affecting children and exposure to dioxin; and if she will make a statement.
§ Mr. SackvilleThe Department has no plans to undertake such a study.
Studies of the statistical link between exposure to possible cancer-producing substances and the incidence of cancer in children can be undertaken only where separate groups of children, exposed significantly to different levels of the substance under study, can be identified. Dioxin is present everywhere in industrialised countries at very low levels, so this is not possible. We do however keep under review the outcome of studies of the follow-up to the accident at Seveso in 1986.