A PUBLIC health boss today dismissed fears of a link between a polio vaccination and cancer.

Research has claimed that polio injections containing the SV40 virus, given in the 1950's and 1960's, could lead to a form of lung cancer.

But Dr Roberta Marshall, East Lancashire's consultant in communicable disease, said it was 'extremely unlikely' that the link would occur.

She said that polio vaccine had been screened for SV40 from 1962 and was eventually replaced by the oral 'sugar lump' vaccine. Her words will allay the fears of hundreds of people who were given the polio vaccine during mass immunisation campaigns in Blackburn during the summer of 1965. The outbreak killed a girl aged 18 and affected 52 others during the summer.

Dr Marshall said: "We have a giant file on the polio immunisation campaign in 1965, which will stick in the memory of lots of people.

"The event came after screening for SV40 was introduced and I think the majority of people in Blackburn would have been given the oral vaccine.

"In any case, I think it would be extremely unlikely that there would be a link with cancer."

In 1965 more than 60,000 people lined up for a double dose of polio vaccine after the epidemic erupted in the Little Harwood area.

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