Reactor fire not linked to Down’s syndrome cases

IF there is evidence of a second Down’s syndrome cluster in Dundalk then it should be investigated.

However, your editorial (Irish Examiner, February 21) is entirely mistaken in suggesting the cluster could have anything to do with the 1957 Windscale fire.

The possibility of a link between the fire at the Windscale site in West Cumbria and a subsequent Down’s syndrome cluster in Dundalk was first intimated by Drs Patricia Sheehan and Irene Hillery in a study published in the British Medical Journal in 1983.