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European
success in campaign to recognise "Sudden Death Syndrome"
CRY
in Parliament 
Labour MEPs have hailed the
decision of the World Health Organisation to investigate the levels of sudden
deaths amongst children and young adults as "good news" and a
"significant step forward".
Campaigners have said that
sudden death amongst children and adults could be claiming up to eight lives a
week in the UK.
Labour MEPs LINDA McAVAN
(Yorkshire and the Humber) and CATHERINE STIHLER (Scotland) highlighted this
issue in October and called for the World Health Organisation to officially
recognise and name the syndrome.
Their call came after the
decision of the WHO to officially recognise Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
helped to create the approaches that led to so-called 'cot deaths' falling 70%
in a decade.
The WHO have now agreed, in
response to Ms McAvan's and Ms Stihler's letter of 8 October, that "it is
important to be able to count cases of sudden unexplained deaths in children and
young adults for statistical purposes" and have agreed to commission a
review of the WHO's statistics to account for sudden unexplained deaths.
Linda McAvan welcomed the news,
saying: "This marks a small but significant step forward. Identification of
the scale of the problem of adult and child sudden death is the necessary first
step towards providing effective measures to stop it from happening."
Catherine Stihler said:
"This is good news and a welcome advance for all those calling for Sudden
Death Syndrome to be recognised. I want to pay tribute to the hard work of so
many families in getting this far, and I hope the WHO will now go on to fully
recognise SDS."
ends
For further details please contact
Adrian McMenamin, European Parliamentary Labour Party press officer on 0044
(0)7812 766017.
Note to editors:
1. A copy of the WHO letter can
be faxed on request.
2. More information on Sudden Death Syndrome can be found at http://www.c-r-y.org.uk
Teddy and Kanga are now
petitioning for MP Dari Taylor's Cardiac Risk in the Young Screening Bill
07/10/03
Parliamentary Press Release Campaign to
recognise "Sudden Death Syndrome" goes to
Europe
On Wednesday, Labour MEPs Linda McAvan and Catherine Stihler are
launching a new pan European campaign in the European Parliament in
Brussels calling on the World Health Organisation to officially recognise
and name the syndrome.
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