The thalidomide families are right to protest against any honouring of Enoch Powell (It isn’t just racism that should bar Powell from a blue plaque, Letters, 12 February). As I relate in My Paper Chase, he also would do nothing as minister of health to introduce tests for cervical cancer in the early 1960s.
The gynaecologist Mr Stanley Way at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Gateshead, had proved how thousands of lives would be saved, but he was ignored until we took up the cause at the Northern Echo, supported by regional MPs such as Dr Jeremy Bray, and two Darlington women, Dr Jean Dubberly and my wife, the late Enid Evans, founder of the local Citizens Advice Bureau.
In neither case was there the slightest justification for Mr Powell’s adamant neglect.
Sir Harold Evans
New York
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