Asbestos News Blog

Britain has the same long history of mining and industrialization that the United States does.  The British Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is an office similar to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the United States.  Here’s what the HSE has to say about asbestos in the UK workplace today:  

“Asbestos: The greatest single cause of work-related deaths in the UK.”

With a population of sixty million, the UK has 4,000 deaths annually that are attributed to mesothelioma.  The United States has about 3,000 with a population five times that of the UK.  Moreover, the rate of mesothelioma cancer deaths is still climbing in the UK, whereas it has leveled out in the United States and is actually showing some signs of slowing down.

As part of a national campaign to raise awareness of the workplace dangers of asbestos, the HSE has been publicizing some of the stark realities of the problem.  A recent BBC story detailed the death rate in a portion of Scotland that includes Edinburgh, Fife and the Lothians.  A study showed that 528 residents of the area died due to mesothelioma during the last two decades of the twentieth century: 1981-2000. 

Of the four thousand Britons dying each year from mesothelioma, about a quarter are former tradesmen – but the HSE notes that “it fears today’s plumbers, electricians and joiners underestimate the ongoing risk.”  The UK a history of architecture that predates building in the United States by several hundred years.  The older buildings in the UK are loaded with asbestos insulation, both commercial structures and residential. 

Despite the omnipresent threat of old, crumbling asbestos in buildings that are being remodeled, the HSE estimates that one of ten tradesmen pay any attention to the safety requirements that involve removing or working around old asbestos.  As a result, the accelerating tragedy of mesothelioma deaths continues unabated.  From another BBC story; “Exposure to the material remains the biggest single cause of work-related deaths, likely to peak at around 5,000 per year in the next five years, the HSE says.”

The Real Problem Underestimated

HSE disease reduction program director Steve Coldrick said: “We have a legacy of 500,000 commercial or industrial buildings in this country which still contain asbestos and it is the tradesmen who are at risk from it now…Unless we make them really understand the problems it can cause, in 20 or 50 years time we will have even more people dying.”

Organized labor sees the problem differently.  Alan Ritchie, general secretary of the builders’ union in the UK said that members who raised concerns about working with asbestos were rapidly losing confidence in the HSE.  “When investigating these complaints, rather than talk to the workers whose health is being put at risk, they instead simply speak to the management, who invariably give the organization a clean bill of health.”

There is also skepticism among the members of the academic community:  Professor Rory O’Neill, of Stirling University’s Occupational and Environmental Health Research Group, said the HSE’s figures were a “woeful” underestimate of the death rate.  “A more realistic figure would be 5,000 – 6,000″ he said.

An agreement regarding the asbestos problems at local schools in Connecticut was recently reached by district officials. Several schools in Brookfield have had ongoing asbestos issues and many parents and employees have voiced their concerns about safety and health.

The agreement recently reached was between school officials and the state Department of Public Health. Residents in the community and parents who have children attending schools in the district are relieved some type of decision has been made.

Ensuring the Safety of Children

The agreement reached supposedly outlines the district’s need to change how it goes about dealing with asbestos problems. The issue at hand was the fact that they didn’t go about properly removing it before and the agreement is meant to prevent this type of mistake from occurring in the future.

“This is a small measure of justice,” stated Kerry Swift, one of the many parents who joined the fight to urge state health officials to investigate how asbestos was being handled at schools.

The order, which was signed by the district’s superintendent, goes into great detail about procedures needed to address asbestos issues. A threat of a $23,000 fine is also included in the case of future errors.

Risks of Asbestos Can be Deadly

Asbestos is known as a carcinogen that can oftentimes be fatal to those who unknowingly inhale or ingest the fibers. Asbestos can also cause various forms of cancer including mesothelioma and asbestosis.

However, symptoms of exposure oftentimes don’t become apparent until several years after it occurred. For this reason, many illnesses have already progressed before they are diagnosed and can begin being treated.

According to recent research conducted at Columbia University, resection, intraperitoneal, chemotherapy, and whole abdominal radiation therapy are effective to treat malignant peritoneal mesothelioma when they are combined.

Hopeful Findings
Reports show that peritoneal mesothelioma is less common that pleural mesothelioma, making up only 20 percent of all cases. However, this is still great news for researchers, patients and families of patients suffering from this potentially fatal illness.

Looking for Effective Treatments
The latency period for abdominal mesothelioma is reportedly 20 to 30 years. Since this type of cancer is so rare, controlled trails of involving different treatments are not readily available. Though, the most common treatment for peritoneal mesothelioma is surgery, followed by systematic and/or intraperitoneal chemotherapy.

Study Conducted
A study was recently conducted which analyzed 27 patients with malignant peritoneal mesothelioma.
The regime given to the patients involved surgical debulking, four intraperitoneal courses of cisplatin combined with four intraperitoneal courses of doxorubicin, four doses of intraperitoneal gamma interferon, and a whole abdominal radiation therapy. Researchers found that there was a median survival rate of 70 months among the patients in addition to a three year survival rate in 67 percent of the patients.