Dramatic reduction in child deaths points to air pollution being a killer

 At the end of this email is an request from me to BHRUT regarding the postcodes of children with various serious illnesses including cancer. I got a reply today which is available at Child illness Stats

The purpose of the request was to track two things

1) If improved air quality due to lock down improved child health, including death rates

2) If child heath was correlated to living close to a busy road, including death rates.

The results are startling and require comment from Magda Smith, the BHRUT, Chief Medical Officer.

For the 12 months: 23rd March 2020 to 22nd March 2021 (sheet 2)

There were 2 child deaths

But for the period 23rd March 2019 to 22nd March 2020

There were 18 child deaths

Similarly, the diagnosis of serious child illness (at sheet one) dropped dramatically from 769 to 203. Some of this reduction appears bound to have been caused by parents being unwilling to take children to hospital, but it seems unlikely to have been the whole cause.

Point one above appears to have been proven. Point two not so as yet, this is because BHRUT are not releasing full postcodes. I will seek the support of elected representatives for the release of full postcodes, even only to MPs, Cllrs and GLA members. 

My original request is below:

Information request sent by me on 20th April 2021

Dear Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust,

Three major high rise developments are planned in Ilford: at Tesco Goodmayes, Homebase and the Seven Kings Car park. All of them are between a busy road and Crossrail. A school is proposed at the Tesco site.

It is welcome that BHRUT have supplied stats relating to asthma and eye disease which will form part of a submission to Redbridge Council. This request seeks further information about child cancer and other illnesses as follows.

1) The full postcodes of patients, both in patients and out patients aged under 18 who have been are/receiving treatment for the following conditions

a) Cancer with a breakdown of types, for example
Leukemia
Brain and spinal cord tumour
Neuroblastoma
Wilms tumour
Lymphoma (including both Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin)
Rhabdomyosarcoma
Retinoblastoma
Bone cancer 
b) Otitis media
c) All Acute lower respiratory infections, such as pneumonia and bronchiolitis.
d) Meningitis

For the following periods:
23rd March 2020 to 22nd March 2021
23rd March 2019 to 22nd March 2020
These dates tie in with the lockdown period.
2) Children who have died in your care either in hospital or at home as out-patients aged under 18 for the same time periods and same conditions with the full postcodes set out in 1 above. It is accepted there are confidentiality issues here, but when Councils are planning substantial housing developments close to roads it must be right to discover if there is a health risk to building homes in these locations.

This information may be over the usual cost limits, but it is the public interest for the it to be published. Information relating to the slight risk of blood clots from the astrazeneca vacine has led to changes in the use of the vaccine.

They are many articles linking child illness pollution one at

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41416-0...

says

“A meta-analysis by Boothe et al.31 assessing childhood leukaemia in relation to multiple pollutants found an increased risk for post-natal exposure but no association with pre-natal exposure. Most studies found an association with childhood leukaemia overall, but the association tended to be stronger when examining just acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) or acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) for specific pollutants32. “

Which suggests a correlation with the illnesses above will be found as was a correlation found between asthma and living by roads in an earlier Freedom of Information request sent to me.

Yours faithfully,

Andy Walker