HC Deb 01 June 1998 vol 313 cc127-8W
Mrs. Gorman

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what(a) guidance and (b) information his Department provides to general practitioners in farming areas on the symptoms and health risks associated with organophosphates; and if he will place a copy of this information in the Library. [41379]

Ms Jowell

The advice given by the Department has been widely distributed on a national basis and has not been confined to farming areas.

The Chief Medical Officer wrote to all doctors in England in 1991 and again with the Chief Executive of the Veterinary Medicines Directorate in June 1993 to alert doctors to the possibility of adverse effects from exposure to pesticides and certain veterinary medicines and to remind them of the reporting schemes for human adverse reactions to veterinary products operated by the Employment Medical Advisory Service and the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food's Veterinary Medicines Directive. The Chief Medical Officers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also wrote to doctors in those countries.

An article in the October 1995 edition of Chief Medical Officer's Update, sent to all doctors in England, dealt with both the acute and chronic effects of organophosphates and the methods of reporting adverse reactions to them.

A further article, in the April 1996 edition of Update (England only) informed all doctors of the publication, in the same month, of the new edition of the book "Pesticide Poisoning: Notes for the Guidance of Medical Practitioners". This book was sent by all United Kingdom Health Departments to general practices, accident and emergency departments and consultants in communicable disease control (and equivalents) with a covering letter.

Copies of this book were also sent to the Presidents of the Royal Colleges under cover of an explanatory letter which encouraged them to draw the book to the attention of their Fellows/Members through their continuing medical education programmes.

Copies of the book "Pesticide Poisoning: Notes for the Guidance of Medical Practitioners" are available in the Library.

We will look closely at the Report of the "Working Party on Management of Patients Chronically Exposed to Organophosphate Sheep Dips" set up by the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Psychiatrists to be published later this year to identify issues for action including whether further guidance to medical practitioners is necessary.

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