Investigation Into The Health Effects Of Ionising Radiation

EDM number 1548 in 2003-04, proposed by Michael Meacher on 20/07/2004.

That this House notes a serious excess of childhood cancer and leukaemia recently discovered around the Menai Strait in North Wales, which appears associated with evidence near those parts of the coast of contamination with radioactivity; further notes that in 1983 the Independent Advisory Group chaired by the late Sir Douglas Black was established to investigate and advise on Yorkshire Television's discovery of an excess of leukaemia in children living on the Cumbrian coast near Sellafield, and that in 1984 the Black IAG recommended a centralised system for monitoring health data to give early warning; is concerned that the Small Area Health Statistics Unit (SAHSU) based at Imperial College in London has no power of independent investigation and did not find the excess leukaemia and cancer on the Menai Strait; is further concerned that the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE), set up on the recommendation of the Black IAG, did not find the excess leukaemia and cancer on the Menai Strait and has not identified a cause of the excess in Cumbria, and has strictly limited powers of independent investigation; and calls on the Government to disband SAHSU and to replace COMARE with a Committee on the Health Effects of Ionising Radiation with a neutral chair, a full-time civil service secretariat, a budget sufficient to permit independent research, and a membership, paid for their work on the Committee and which represents all shades of relevant scientific opinion.

This motion has been signed by a total of 85 MPs.