Asbestos Risks - Mesothelioma Asbestos, Mesothelioma Lawyers
MPs urged to stop 'fourth wave' asbestos epidemic
Date: 23 October 2002
MPs are being urged by the TUC today (Thursday) to back a new legal duty on employers to manage the risks of asbestos in commercial premises. The TUC believes the move would help prevent a 'fourth wave' of deaths from killer diseases caused by asbestos, such as the incurable and painful cancer of the lining of the lung, mesothelioma.
In the House of Commons, later today, MPs will be debating amendments to the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations proposed by the Health and Safety Commission. The amendments would require employers to identify which bits of their buildings contain the deadly material, and draw up a plan to manage the risks.
Asbestos-related diseases currently kill about 5,000 people a year in Britain, and the number is set to double over the next twenty years to become the most common cause of early death among adult males. There are estimated to be 1.4 million commercial premises with asbestos in them, mostly built before bans on asbestos began in the early 1980s, although the last form of asbestos was only banned in 1999.
TUC General Secretary, John Monks, said:
'We've already seen tens of thousands of deaths due to this fatal fibre. Unless we act now to control the risk posed by millions of tonnes of asbestos in commercial premises, there will be a 'fourth wave' of asbestos deaths, and the death toll will continue to rise for the rest of the century.'
The epidemics of asbestos-related deaths over the last century (it was first identified as a hazardous substance in 1898) fall into three 'waves':
- the first wave consisted of the people handling raw asbestos such as dockers and people manufacturing asbestos products;
- the second wave consisted of people installing asbestos products, especially lagging for boilers in ships and buildings; and
- the third wave consisted of construction workers engaged in repairs, renovation and removal of asbestos.
The TUC and asbestos campaigners now fear a 'fourth wave' of people whose exposure results from asbestos in the building where they work deteriorating and getting into the air. This could include teachers, nurses, factory staff, shop assistants and office workers. Anyone who works in a building containing asbestos is at risk if their employer doesn't take some fairly simple steps to manage the asbestos in the workplace. Otherwise, accidental finds of asbestos are likely to lead to scares and emergency evacuations, which are far more disruptive than a planned approach.
People have already begun to develop mesothelioma from such exposures, including cases such as:
- A retired teacher diagnosed with an industrial disease from asbestos fibres told how 'puffs of dust' would billow from classroom walls if she tried pinning up pupil's work. Told by doctors she had mesothelioma, NUT member Jean Whitwam said she believed she contracted the disease from exposure to asbestos fibres during 24 years working at Outlane Infant School, in Moorlands Road, Huddersfield. Mrs Whitwam, 66, who lived with her husband Kenneth, in Quarmby, Huddersfield, died after breathing in asbestos while she was working at the school. The inquest heard how asbestos had been found, treated or removed from the school in 1992;
- Trevor and Joyce Ives had been together 40 years - a husband and wife team who lived life to the full. For 18 years the couple ran the Cardigan Arms pub in Kirkstall, Leeds, and despite long hours and hard work it was a job they loved. They retired in 1996 with the prospect of quality time together. Six years on Mrs Ives, 64, is a widow. Instead of enjoying her retirement she is grieving for a man who meant the world to her. His life was cruelly cut short by mesothelioma. Looking back Mrs Ives feels certain her husband came into contact with the lethal dust during his years as licensee at the pub. He began working there in 1979 and much of his time was spent in the cellar, where asbestos was identified in 1983. Uncovered pipes were lagged and eventually removed altogether in 1986 as regulations were tightened.
- Roger Ricketts is living under a death sentence. At the age of 58, he has the incurable asbestos-related cancer mesothelioma and could have only months left to live.
But he wasn't a construction worker or docker or even a pipe lagger. Nor did he live in the shadow of an asbestos factory like other victims of the deadly disease. Mr Ricketts worked for Woolworth as a store manager. And he believes he contracted the disease while simply doing his job as building work or renovations were carried out. Mr Ricketts, from Leeds, who was diagnosed in March and believes he contracted mesothelioma in a store in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, or Briggate, Leeds, said: 'I thought it was people who worked in factories which used these asbestos-related products, not ordinary people going about their business who were affected. I never gave it (asbestos) a thought, the furthest thing from my mind was dying of cancer.' - Eminent plastic surgeon James Emerson was another unwitting victim of asbestos - exposed while a junior doctor in London. The father-of-three, who also worked at the Northern General Hospital, Sheffield, was only 47 when he died in August 1995 at the height of his career. He was diagnosed with the asbestos-related cancer mesothelioma the previous year. As a junior doctor at Middlesex Hospital in the early 1970s he breathed in asbestos which was lining the pipes of an underground corridor connecting the main building and the school of medicine. Camden and Islington Health Authority admitted liability in 1998 and his family won £1.15m in damages.
These case studies are all taken from the Yorkshire Post at www.ypn.co.uk.
All TUC press releases can be found at www.tuc.org.uk
A series of TUC rights leaflets are available on our website and from the know your rights line 0870 600 4 882. Lines are open every day from 8am-10pm. Calls are charged at the national rate.
Contacts:
Media enquiries:
Liz Chinchen
020 7467 1248 or
07699 744115 (pager)
lchinchen@tuc.org.uk
Other enquiries:
Owen Tudor, TUC Senior Policy Officer
020 7467 1325
07788 715261 (mobile)
otudor@tuc.org.uk
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