LEADING carpet companies have poured scorn on claims workers are suffering health problems because of chemicals used in manufacturing.

An expert at the Kidderminster-based Carpet Foundation, which represents 15 top manufacturers, said the allegations were not backed by evidence and some 5,000 town workers were not at risk.

Foundation technical director David Whitefoot stressed he had sympathy for any worker in ill-health but it was wrong to link their condition with carpet.

He said: "We find this allegation to be unfounded and apparently based on flawed opinion and evidence.

"If there is some real evidence, however, the carpet industry will take it seriously and investigate it in a thoroughly responsible manner."

His comments followed allegations by Dr Sarah Myhill, a leading figure in the British Society of Allergy, Environmental and Nutritional Medicine.

She claims to have treated patients who have been poisoned by chemicals used in carpet manufacture.

Myalgic specialist Dr Myhill said: "I suspect there may be thousands of sufferers in the country.

"The medical establishment is extremely poor at diagnosing cases of poisoning, as exampled by farmers with sheep dip flu and Gulf War veterans.

"At present they are not treating this link seriously at all."

However, Mr Whitefoot insisted the industry had not been presented with any conclusive evidence.

He added a paper submitted by Dr Myhill to back up her claims had been discredited after being successfully challenged in a US court.

One of Dr Myhill's patients is Dorothy Bywater, of Alveley, who worked as a picker in Kidderminster carpet firms for 38 years.

Mrs Bywater, who suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome, believes her condition is linked to exposure to chemicals in carpet.

She believes her illness, which includes flushing, bloating, irritant bowel, aching joints, memory loss and a burning sensation in the mouth, among a host of symptoms, is the result of organophosphate poisoning.

This is based on the belief sheep's wool is impregnated with toxic organophosphorous from sheep dip used to prevent disease in the animal.

However, Mr Whitefoot pointed out once wool had gone through the dyeing process the amount of organophosphate remaining in the fibre would be in minute, unharmful traces, which would not break out into the atmosphere.

He said: "There is no regular use of toxic chemicals in carpet manufacture that give off poisonous fumes from carpet in process or in use and workers are not at risk."