Our overriding concern here was a reasonable one. We’re told that the residual amounts are tiny – in the micrograms – but with millions of healthy UK children, including our own, being pressured into using these tests twice a week by their schools, it was possible that such frequent use could result in a cumulative build-up of cancer-causing ethylene oxide inside their bodies, potentially resulting in a heightened risk of developing leukaemia and other life-threatening cancers.

Nowhere within Lord Bethell’s ill-considered reply – bizzarely focusing on ‘misinformation from UK citizens’ – is this possibility addressed or considered. It therefore amounts to a non-response to what was an extremely urgent query. Moreover, the UK public have been made to sit and wait for two whole months.

Our specific concern about a potential accumulation of ethylene oxide in the body or bloodstream was covered in more detail here, in this separately published…