§ Joan RuddockTo ask the Secretary of State for Health (I) how many cases have been recorded by the National Poisons Information Service since 1996 of lindane poisoning in children up to 14 years of age; what the level of exposure was in each case; and whether these cases were(a) fatal lindane poisonings, (b) non-fatal, hospitalised lindane poisonings and (c) non-hospitalised lindane poisonings; [59635]
1219W(2) if he will produce an annual report of confirmed and suspected pesticide poisonings recorded by regional centres of the National Poisons Information Service, aggregated with those recorded by the (a) Health and Safety Executive's Pesticide Incident Appraisal Panel and (b) Pesticides Safety Directorate; [59636]
(3) how many inquiries have been received by the National Poisons Information Service since 1996 regarding lindane. [59637]
§ Ms BlearsSince 1996 the national poisons information service (NPIS) has received 376 inquiries from national health service health care professionals about lindane poisoning, of which 178 reported lindane poisoning in children up to 14 years of age. In nearly all cases the individuals were asymptomatic or suffered only mild transient symptoms.
The NPIS centres only record data related to the inquiries they receive and the extent and format of the data held varies from centre to centre. They do not necessarily receive inquiries in every case and will only rarely be provided with information about the level of exposure. NPIS systems are not designed to follow up poisoning incidents and centres can never be certain whether the condition reported at the time of the inquiry was related to the agent implicated nor whether the clinical condition improved or deteriorated thereafter.
The annual reports of the Health and Safety Executive's Pesticide Incident Appraisal Panel (PIAP) collate reports made to enforcing authorities (Health and Safety Executive and local authorities) which have been investigated. The Pesticides Safety Directorate (PSD) does not separately record suspected incidents of exposure to pesticides.
The information available from NPIS and PIAP reflect the different objectives of the schemes and are thus difficult to aggregate. The Advisory Committee on Pesticides is considering approaches to assessing information on pesticide-related ill health.