In August 2003, the newly formed Health Protection Agency was aware of health concerns around incinerators and landfill sites and promised to check data:

"The health protection agency (HPA), responsible for public health in England and Wales, yesterday conceded that there was public concern about the health risks from use of mobile phones, industrial chemicals and pollution from landfill sites and incinerators. Unveiling its first five-year plan, it recognised that exposure to chemicals and poisons was greater in poor and disadvantaged areas and that children might be at greatest risk."

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/aug/06/publicservices.health

On 10 January 2008, the Dorking Advertiser reported my research showing elevated rates of infant mortality in electoral wards downwind of incinerators (2003-2005 ONS data), including electoral ward maps showing data upwind and downwind of incinerators in Edmonton, Kirklees and Coventry.

The headline of the follow-up Dorking Advertiser (17 January 2008) article about my research had the headline: "If it was dangerous it wouldn't be built, say incinerator bosses". Article: https://www.ukhr.eu/incineration/dorking-advertiser-17-01-2008.jpg

I sent the HPA a Freedom of Information Act request in March 2008 asking for a list of incinerators around which the HPA had examined the rates of illness and the rates of premature deaths at all ages at electoral ward level and compared upwind-v-downwind wards. Justin McCracken, CEO of the HPA, eventually replied admitting that no such data had been examined. The Dorking Advertiser of 22 May 2008 reported that appalling admission of neglect on 22 May 2008 in "Incinerator fury as bosses admit to no health checks: Protestors say that agency is failing to protect public from illness" Article: https://www.ukhr.eu/incineration/dorking-advertiser-22-05-2008.jpg

There's an ongoing presumption that exposure to incinerator emissions have little or no adverse impact on health, but evidence to back-up that presumption has yet to be produced, so we are "treated as guinea pigs", but without anyone bothering to honestly analyse relevant data.

https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/news/campaigners-claim-residents-living-near-incinerators-being-used-as-guinea-pigs/

Infant mortality rates are recognised as an accurate indicator of the health of a community. Councils exposed to industrial PM2.5 emissions from major sources exhibit a sudden rise in rates of infant mortality after such sources start operating and sudden reductions after they cease operating. These changes cannot be explained away by blaming deprivation, ethnicity or socio-economic status.

This graph shows sudden rises in the infant mortality rates in three London Boroughs mist exposed to emissions from the SELCHP incinerator in Lewisham, whilst the rate in Wandsworth which is rarely exposed to emissions continued to fall.

https://ukhr.eu/incineration/selchp.htm

My six-page letter of 19 June 2024 to Philip Duffy, CEO of the Environment Agency, about the issuing of permits for incinerators, had the following subject heading: "Environment Agency's ongoing failure to ensure that advice received about the adverse health effects of incinerator emissions was accurate", and can be read here: https://www.ukhr.eu/incineration/letter-to-philip-duffy-19-06-2024.pdf

The letters of acknowledgment from Ian Cable, dated 26 June and 3 July 2024, can be seen here: http://www.ukhr.eu/incineration/environment-agency-letter-26.06.24.pdf and http://www.ukhr.eu/incineration/environment-agency-letter-03.07.24.pdf