Burying the Evidence
A stunning piece of research entitled Burying the Evidence, by Rory O'Neill, is to be found in the latest issue of Hazards Magazine.1 This in-depth investigation into work-related disease places the current UK mesothelioma epidemic in the wider context of the growing death toll from occupational cancers. Lack of effective preventative measures by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) has been justified by epidemiological research, published in 1981 by Richard Doll and Julian Peto,2 which concluded that:
"the proportion of cancer deaths in Great Britain due to occupational exposures over the last few decades is 4 per cent, with an associated uncertainty of 2 per cent to 8 per cent."
O'Neill estimates that the correct figure is 12% with an associated uncertainty range of 8-16%; this works out at between 12,000-24,000 occupational cancers in Great Britain a year. Despite new research and mounting evidence, the HSE remains committed to the discredited findings.3 The result of the HSE's intransigence has created, O'Neill says, “one of Britain's most lamentable, preventable public health disasters."
Burying the Evidence cites individual cases which support anecdotal evidence that there are an increasing number of younger people dying of mesothelioma. This means that the hazardous exposures they received were likely to have occurred after the UK government introduced regulations to control occupational exposures to asbestos; clearly these regulations did not achieve their intended objective. The lack of urgency in combating the asbestos epidemic is contrasted with the UK Government's reaction to the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in 2001 which generated an almost war-time mobilization of army and public health personnel.
November 28, 2005
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2 Doll R and Peto J. The Causes of Cancer: Quantitative Estimates of Avoidable Risks of Cancer in the United States Today. Journal of the National Cancer Institute. 1981;66,6:1191-1308.
3 The Doll/Peto projections have been criticized for excluding the deaths of African-Americans and people over the age of 65, “almost entirely” ignoring the occupational cancer risks to women and only considering a small number of cancer risks. Dr. Richard Clapp wrote in September 2005: “Using the Doll/Peto estimates for occupational cancer probably underestimated the occupational exposure contribution by a factor of two to four in both the US and the UK.”
