Your correspondent Alan Healey (Education class and interwoven inequalities, Letters, 28 August) considers how the Black report on inequalities in health was buried. Apparently, only 260 duplicated copies of the typescript were made available in 1980 and only a few copies were sent to selected journalists on the Friday before the August bank holiday, thus virtually guaranteeing the lowest possible level of publicity. Fortunately, an astute journalist realised the significance of the report and the working group held an alternative press conference at the Royal College of Physicians, the Lancet pointing out that ministers and officials were “keen to reduce the report’s impact to a minimum”. Perhaps an early example of politicians wishing to bury bad news.
Dr Kenneth Macaulay
Dunfermline, Fife
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