Writing to Cllrs about BHRUT stats pointing to air pollution being a cause of child deaths

 I wrote the below to Redbridge Cllrs earlier today.

Dear Cllrs

I got a Freedom of Information request back from BHRUT yesterday which is available at my stop the Tesco Toxic Towers blog. It shows the child death rate for a limited number of conditions susceptible to air pollution at 18 child deaths during the year before lockdown, and for just 2 child deaths the year during lockdown.

The request also shows a large reduction in children being diagnosed with illnesses during lock down. How much of this reduction is due to cleaner air during lock down and how much is due to other factors, such as children mixing less and parents not taking their children to hospital is difficult to say. We do know that multiple sources claim that air pollution reduced during lock down and that this Council regards air pollution as a threat to health.

I have asked BHRUT to provide a comment on the stats, they seem unlikely to do so with so much else on their plate right now. However, I seek your support for BHRUT issuing a statement on the issue. One child, Ella Kissi-Debrah, is known to have died of air pollution. On the face of it, the stats provided by BHRUT yesterday suggest many others may have died of air pollution too. I do stress “may”, we need expert commentary on what these stats mean. I have written to four other trusts to see if there is a similar pattern elsewhere.

BHRUT are refusing to provide the full postcode of the dead children, without this information we cannot tell if living close to a road is linked to the deaths. Confidentially is important, but so is good governance which stems from good information.

With your help there must be a way of finding if the dead children did live near to roads without the need to disclose the information to the public. I hope to discuss the issue tonight at planning. Sadiq Khan needs to call in the Tesco Toxic Towers application which has a school within it to investigate if child deaths in London are linked to living by busy roads.

Regards

Andy Walker