Labour's "Black report" moment?

doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7516.575

BMJ 2005;331:575 (10 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7516.575

Letter

Labour's "Black report" moment?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—The release of the government's latest report onhealth inequalities on 11 August was curious.^1
2 Reminiscentof the covert release of the Black report on August bank holidayin 1980, the report appeared when the minister for public healthwas on holiday and her deputy unavailable.

In July 2003 the government stated that there would be an annualreport from the Department of Health on health inequality indicatorsrelated to the health inequality targets. Nothing appeared formore than two years, although the data that were eventuallyreleased had been available for some time,³ and when they didappear it was, conveniently, after the election. Even stranger,the press release for the latest report deflected attentionfrom the key finding of widening inequalities in life expectancyand infant mortality by headlining the 12 "early adopter sites"with their "health trainers."⁴ The minister said, "Many peoplehave difficulty in . . . [Full text of this article]

Mary Shaw, reader in medical sociology

Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 2PR

Danny Dorling, professor of human geography

Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN

Richard Mitchell, associate director

Research Unit in Health, Behaviour and Change, University of Edinburgh Medical School, Edinburgh EH8 9AG

George Davey Smith, professor of clinical epidemiology

Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol George.Davey-Smith@bristol.ac.uk

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