§ Dr. GibsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of recent evidence on the correlation between rates of lung cancer and long-term exposure to radon gas. [126042]
§ Yvette CooperWe obtain advice from the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) on matters of radiological protection. NRPB reviewed the evidence on the risks of exposure to radon in the 1993 "Board Statement on Diagnostic Medical Exposures to Ionising Radiation During Pregnancy and Estimates of Late Radiation Risks to the UK Population" (Documents of the NRPB Vol 4, No 4). Copies are available in the Library.
The NRPB's Advisory Group on Ionising Radiation has recently started a new review which will be completed in about two years. Although some new evidence, including a case control study in South-West England—"Risk of lung cancer associated with residential radon exposure in
36WData prior to 1995 on how many notifications of measles, mumps and rubella were tested and confirmed are incomplete and are incomparable with that for 1995 onwards from which date more accessible salivary antibody testing was introduced. Prior to 1995 confirmation required a blood test; these data are not collated but it was likely to be few. The number of cases of pertussis (whooping cough) is based on notifications; only hospitalised cases are tested and the test is only positive in severe disease and very early in infection. The data for diphtheria are for laboratory-confirmed toxigenic diphtheria isolates. The figures for tetanus and polio are for cases ascertained by all methods.
South West England: a case-control study" S.C. Darby et al British Journal of Cancer (1998), 78(3), 394–408 (copies are available in the Library)—has become available in the interim, the NRPB advise it is unlikely to alter the broad assessment of risk which is that living for a lifetime in a house at the United Kingdom action level for radon (200 Bequerels per cubic metre of air) carries a 3–5 per cent. risk of lung cancer.