§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr. Lewis Moonie)I announced on I May 2002 (Official Report, column 792W) to my hon Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Dr Palmer) that contracts had been placed with five independent laboratories to carry out a pilot study to examine different methods of determining the Depleted Uranium content in urine. This study, which was to be carried out under the auspices of the independent Depleted Uranium Oversight Board (DUOB), would examine a number of different methods and establish whether a suitably, accurate, precise and sensitive test was available. Subject to its outcome, I hoped that a test could be made available to serving personnel and veterans in October 2002.
The pilot study is now complete, and has unfortunately produced inconclusive results. This is likely to be as the result of inadvertent contamination of the spiked urine samples used in the study. The DUOB has decided that a second stage of the pilot study is therefore required. This will involve the three laboratories whose results in the first phase were most consistent.
A detailed protocol for the creation of the spiked samples has been produced by the technical experts of the DUOB in consultation with these three laboratories, designed as far as possible to avoid contamination in the second stage.
We expect to place contracts for the second stage in January 2003, with the results of the study expected in April. Subject to satisfactory results from the pilot exercise, we expect to be able to make the test available towards the end of the first half of 2003