Michael Ryan

Here's the text of e-mail I received yesterday in which Mayor Boris Johnson seems reluctant to look at the aggregated infant death rates in each of London's 625 electoral wards. Dear Michael Please find below the answer to the question that Darren Johnson, Green Party Member of the London Assembly submitted on your behalf at the January 2010 Mayor's Question Time, regarding infant mortality rates. Regards George Raszka Green Party Group on the London Assembly The Queen's Walk London SE1 2AA 0207 983 4411 Infant mortality Rates Question number 0042/2010 Meeting date 27/01/2010 Question by Darren Johnson? Will you publish electoral ward-level data and a map showing the 2002-2008 infant mortality rates in London? Answer by Boris Johnson In some boroughs there are only five infant deaths a year, so rates at ward level for single years would be extremely unreliable. While DMAG could combine several years worth of data to calculate a ward rate, one of the stipulations of their licence is that they do not publish the data online. If you wish to discuss the data in more detail can I suggest you contact Andrew Collinge, Assistant Director of Intelligence, on extension 4652. --------------------------------------- If anyone in East Dulwich wonders what's been going on with health in UK in general or London in particular, just google "air pollution" with one of each of the following: heart disease, IQ, asthma, low birthweight, infant mortality, stroke, depression, sleep apnea and then ask why no-one at the London Health Observatory or Department of Health seem able to keep up-to-date on the causes of ill-health and premature deaths in UK. The infant death rates in Boroughs of Lewisham, Tower Hamlets and Newham all rose after SELCHP incinerator started operating in December 1993. The Los Angeles Times reported link between air pollution and infant deaths in December 1960 while I was waiting for train home from school at Blackheath station. Many of you won't have been born in 1960 and yet here we are, almost fifty years later, still blaming mothers or carers when their babies die instead of doing a proper analysis of data.

I suggest that Albany mothers look at the recent written answer to the question put to Boris Johnson by Darren Johnson of the Green Party regarding a map showing the 2002-2008 infant death rates in London's electoral wards.

If the Health Protection Agency were confident that incinerators pose no risk to human health, they'd have published the rats of illness and the rates of premature deaths at electoral ward level around existing incinerators. They cannot to that because they've not even looked at the data yet according to this letter to me from their Chief Executive: http://www.ukhr.org/incineration/justinmccracken8june2009.pdf Mr McCracken might care to comment on: http://ukhr.org/incineration/kirkleesarea.pdf Doesn't Taper know that Southwark PCT paid the London Health Observatory to try and find out why the infant death rates were so high in Southwark's electoral wards a few years ago. I've got the report and also a copy of the invoice submitted to Southwark PCT which you might have helped to pay for. It's no good examining a single borough's wards in London or anywhere else unless the area is very large. The London Health Observatory have the same set of data as me and they should make the effort to aggregate the last seven years' data for each of London's 625 electoral wards and just colour in on a ward map the very high infant death rate wards, ie those of 7.5 per 1,000 live births and above which are clustered around and downwind of incinerators. If the LHO has a different coloured pencil, they should also colour in the twelve London electoral wards which had zero infant deaths recorded in same 7-year period and note that they are where incinerator emissions aren't landing on people. Anyone in Southwark or elsewhere in London who wants to know the infant death statistics in their borough should write to their Primary Care Trust and ask under Freedom of Information for a printout of the VS4 birth and mortality data for their borough's wards for each of the last seven or more years. Ask for the sheets to be sent for each year individually & not aggregated - otherwise the data might be "manipulated" as happened to me when I obtained data from Telford & Wrekin PCT and mentioned in this statement of mine: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmenvfru/780/780we14.htm Didn't anyone in Southwark read the South London Press on 4 May 2007? Health Risk by Julia Lewis 4 May 2007 FAMILIES living downwind of incinerators are more at risk from infant death, heart disease, cancer and autism, health researchers claim. Michael Ryan and Dr Dick van Steenis believe babies are more likely to die if they are exposed to fumes from incinerators like the South East London Combined Heat and Power Plant (SELCHPP) in Deptford. The researchers point to Office of National Statistics (ONS) figures showing infant mortality rates ward by ward. Areas downwind of the incinerator in Landmann Way have an infant mortality rate more than four times that of wards upwind of the plant. ONS figures show that, in wards north-east of SELCHP, infant deaths are 7.1 per 1,000 compared with 0.9 per 1,000 south of the plant. Findings They maintain research carried out in the US backs up their findings but that the Government won?t listen to them. Because of the prevailing westerly wind, they claim, areas to the north-east of an incinerator are most affected by dangerous emissions that contain PM2.5 particles ? a cocktail of heavy metals small they can be breathed in. Dr Van Steenis, a retired GP and once adviser to a House of Commons air pollution select committee, said: ?There is nothing to screen out PM2.5 particles in the UK and there is no regulation.? Dr Frederica Perera, professor at New York?s Columbia University and director of Columbia Centre for Children?s Environmental Health, said:?Many studies, including our own, have found that in utero or childhood exposures to PM2.5 particles, or pollutants in the particles, are associated with adverse respiratory health and neuro development in children, and may increase the risk of cancers later on in life. But Chris Smith, of the Government?s Environmental Protection Directorate, said no permit would be issued to an incinerator operator if a health risk was likely. Emissions were tightly controlled under EU limits and incinerators regulated. A spokesman for Environmental Services Association, which represents the waste management industry, said incinerators had to operate to ?extremely high? standards. ---------------- How can anyone tell if incinerators are operating at "extremely high" or extremely low standards unless health data is routinely examined? Kind regards, Michael Ryan, Shrewsbury

Parts of South East London are very healthy - they're the places that are free from harmful PM2.5 emissions from incinerators & other industrial sources. If smoking is so bad for us, why is the "smoke" from incinerators considered to be harmless? They're not burning tobacco in them. There's a safer alternative to incineration which local councils are ignoring. It's called "plasma gasification" and if the health damage costs of incineration are included in comparison, then plasma gasification works out at about one hundred pounds per tonne cheaper than incineration. Other countries are going for plasma gasification - but the UK is going crazy signing up to 27-year incinerator deals under PFI. Over 150 years ago, Dr John Snow asked the government to tell Londoners to boil drinking water to stop the cholera deaths. He knew cholera must be transmitted by contaminated water when the rest all believed it was transmitted by "miasma", ie the stench of sewage. Dr Snow was ignored and about 50,000 Londoners died of cholera who should have been saved.

Here's two London articles about my research: http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/wfnews/1592749.Concerns_over_infant_death_rates_in_Chingford_Green/ http://www.hounslowchronicle.co.uk/west-london-news/local-hounslow-news/2008/08/21/baby-death-rates-soar-109642-21573869/ Here's how they are mapping infant death rates in Saginaw: http://www.mlive.com/living/saginaw/index.ssf/2009/04/saginaw_county_infant_mortalit.html Here's how I've been mapping data: http://ukhr.org/incineration/kirklees.pdf Here's the Health Protection Agency letter to me admitting no relevant studies of health around any incinerator: http://www.ukhr.org/incineration/justinmccracken8june2009.pdf Here's text of South London Press article of 4 May 2007: Health Risk by Julia Lewis FAMILIES living downwind of incinerators are more at risk from infant death, heart disease, cancer and autism, health researchers claim. Michael Ryan and Dr Dick van Steenis believe babies are more likely to die if they are exposed to fumes from incinerators like the South East London Combined Heat and Power Plant (SELCHPP) in Deptford. The researchers point to Office of National Statistics (ONS) figures showing infant mortality rates ward by ward. Areas downwind of the incinerator in Landmann Way have an infant mortality rate more than four times that of wards upwind of the plant. ONS figures show that, in wards north-east of SELCHP, infant deaths are 7.1 per 1,000 compared with 0.9 per 1,000 south of the plant. Findings They maintain research carried out in the US backs up their findings but that the Government won?t listen to them. Because of the prevailing westerly wind, they claim, areas to the north-east of an incinerator are most affected by dangerous emissions that contain PM2.5 particles ? a cocktail of heavy metals small they can be breathed in. Dr Van Steenis, a retired GP and once adviser to a House of Commons air pollution select committee, said: ?There is nothing to screen out PM2.5 particles in the UK and there is no regulation.? Dr Frederica Perera, professor at New York?s Columbia University and director of Columbia Centre for Children?s Environmental Health, said:?Many studies, including our own, have found that in utero or childhood exposures to PM2.5 particles, or pollutants in the particles, are associated with adverse respiratory health and neuro development in children, and may increase the risk of cancers later on in life. But Chris Smith, of the Government?s Environmental Protection Directorate, said no permit would be issued to an incinerator operator if a health risk was likely. Emissions were tightly controlled under EU limits and incinerators regulated. A spokesman for Environmental Services Association, which represents the waste management industry, said incinerators had to operate to ?extremely high? standards. Kind regards, Michael Ryan

Dear Albany Mums, My wife and I are from SE London and now live in Shrewsbury where we've had four children and buried two of them. I went to school in Blackheath and studied Civil Engineering at Woolwich/Thames Polytechnic forty years ago. If both our children had died as infants, my wife or I or both would probably have been suspected of foul play (see articles about Sally Clark & others wrongly accused) and surviving children "taken into care". The South London Press of 4 May 2007 had article (on page 17) by Julia Lewis about my research into infant mortality rates in electoral wards in London when I'd examined the data for the three-year period 2003-2005. I've finished analysing the infant mortality statistics in London for the seven-year period 2002-2008 and noticed that the electoral wards that are near to or downwind of incinerators have high rates of infant deaths while the electoral wards that are free from such emissions have low rates or even zero infant deaths as were recorded in twelve London electoral wards. The Southwark ward of Newington had the highest infant death rate in London for the 7-year period 2002-2008 at 14.0 per 1,000 live births which is around three-times the average rate for England & Wales. The total number of live births in Newington was 1499 for the 7-year period and there were 21 infant deaths. Eastcote & East Ruislip ward (Hillingdon Borough) had the highest infant death rate in London for the 6-year period 2002-2007 at 13.9 per 1,000 live births. Eastcote & East Ruislip is one of the five percent of "least deprived" wards in London but their residents are being deprived of clean air due to emissions from incinerators at Colnbrook (Slough) and Hillingdon Hospital. Southwark is "sandwiched" between two incinerators, namely SELCHP in Lewisham and the Kings College Hospital incinerator which is authorised by the Environment Agency to burn radioactive waste - just like the St Mark's Hospital incinerator in Northwick Park, Brent and the White Rose incinerator at Sidcup Hospital. There won't be many "Albany Mums" in Northwick Park ward which had the highest infant death rate in Brent for 2002-2008 at 12.4 per 1,000 (970 live births and 12 infant deaths) - and maybe not in Sidcup ward either which had the highest infant death rate in Bexley Borough for the same 7-year period 2002-2008 at 7.9 per 1,000. Here in Shropshire, some electoral wards have had zero infant deaths in each of the sixteen years 1993-2008, ie my entire record of Office for National Statistics data. These "zero infant death wards" are those that have clean air. They also have plenty of poor people as rural Shropshire has always "enjoyed" low wages - just like agricultural districts elsewhere. Look at the extract from the "infant mortality" sectionpage 471 of Black's Medical Dictionary (1944 edition) because you'll see that the infant death rate rose as there was more exposure to combustion fumes: "As a general rule it (ie infant mortality) is lowest in agricultural districts, higher in thickly populated mining and manufacturing regions, and highest in large towns where textile industries are carried on and where female labour is largely employed." Here's the 1st sentence in the conclusion of the Japanese study into infant deaths around 63 incinerators: "Our study shows a peak-decline in risk with distance from the municipal solid waste incinerators for infant deaths and infant deaths with all congenital malformations combined." J Epidemiol. 2004 May;14(3):83-93. Risk of adverse reproductive outcomes associated with proximity to municipal solid waste incinerators with high dioxin emission levels in Japan. Tango T, Fujita T, Tanihata T, Minowa M, Doi Y, Kato N, Kunikane S, Uchiyama I, Tanaka M, Uehata T. Department of Technology Assessment and Biostatistics, National Institute of Public Health, Wako, Saitama, Japan. BACKGROUND: Great public concern about health effects of dioxins emitted from municipal solid waste incinerators has increased in Japan. This paper investigates the association of adverse reproductive outcomes with maternal residential proximity to municipal solid waste incinerators. METHODS: The association of adverse reproductive outcomes with mothers living within 10 km from 63 municipal solid waste incinerators with high dioxin emission levels (above 80 ng international toxic equivalents TEQ/m3) in Japan was examined. The numbers of observed cases were compared with the expected numbers calculated from national rates adjusted regionally. Observed/expected ratios were tested for decline in risk or peak-decline in risk with distance up to 10 km. RESULTS: In the study area within 10 km from the 63 municipal solid waste incinerators in 1997-1998, 225,215 live births, 3,387 fetal deaths, and 835 infant deaths were confirmed. None of the reproductive outcomes studied here showed statistically significant excess within 2 km from the incinerators. However, a statistically significant peak-decline in risk with distance from the incinerators up to 10 km was found for infant deaths (p=0.023) and infant deaths with all congenital malformations combined (p=0.047), where a "peak" is detected around 1-2 km. CONCLUSION: Our study shows a peak-decline in risk with distance from the municipal solid waste incinerators for infant deaths and infant deaths with all congenital malformations combined. However, due to the lack of detailed exposure information to dioxins around the incinerators, the observed trend in risk should be interpreted cautiously and there is a need for further investigation to accumulate good evidence regarding the reproductive health effects of waste incinerator exposure. More info at www.ukhr.org Kind regards, Michael Ryan, Shrewsbury