§ Mr. GunnellTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what studies her Department has carried out into the relationship between the use of lindane and the incidence of breast cancer.
§ Mr. SackvilleNone. The main agency through which the Government support biomedical and clinical research is the Medical Research Council, which receives its grant in aid from the office of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The MRC is an independent body deciding what research to support on its own expert judgment. The Department of Health expert committee on carcinogenicity has been asked to advise on any relationship between organochlorines, including lindane, and breast cancer when it next meets in March 1995, and will consider the latest available research.