Asbestos diseases kill thousands in the UK every year. But these are not just statistics, they are all stories of pain, hardship and bereavement.

Hazards 94, May 2006 [pdf]. asbestos webpage

The report provides a listing of compensated occupational cancers caused by asbestos across Europe. At least eight such cancers are listed but only France has recognised them all. This fact reveals the difficulties with respect to legal, economic, and insurance issues dealt with in cancer recognition and that also apply to other occupational cancers.

Asbestos-related occupational diseases in Europe, enquiry report, European Forum of the Insurance against Accidents at Work and Occupational Diseases, Eurogip, April 2006.

On a rare occasion HSE did revisit its occupational cancer estimates, it revised them down. It now says the ratio of asbestos related lung cancers to mesotheliomas may be lower than 1 to 1 – a 2005 HSE paper puts the ratio of asbestos lung cancers to mesotheliomas at between 2/3 and 1 to 1 – much lower than many other estimates. In 2009, the HSE authors had to admit they had got their mesothelioma risk estimates for chrysotile asbestos wrong – out by a factor of 10 – casting doubt on the validity of their work in this area. This was exposed by Hazards magazine.

Darnton, AJ, McElvenny, DM, Hodgson, JT. Estimating the number of asbestos related lung cancer deaths in Great Britain from 1980-2000, Annals of Occupational Hygiene, volume 50, issue 1, pages 29-38, January 2006.

This paper by UK academics and asbestos patient advocates provides a rare example of costing an occupational cancer with regard to acute hospital care using registrar-general data and day book costs for pharmacological and surgical interventions. It does not consider primary or wider care costs or losses to the economy. The paper argues that consideration of occupational cancer costs is needed to assess public health impacts. It notes: “Figures for primary care costs, including caregiver costs, are incomplete or unknown. These disease costs are substantial and have some international generalisability. Treatment patterns and costs vary greatly. Many lung cancer cases due to asbestos exposure occur globally for each mesothelioma case. Hence figures provided in this article are certain to be gross underestimates of the total health service and personal economic costs of asbestos illness and treatment in Scotland.”

Andrew Watterson, Tommy Gorman, Cari Malcolm, Mavis Robinson, and Matthias Beck. The economic costs of health service treatments for asbestos-related mesothelioma deaths, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, volume 1076, pages 871-881, 2006.

A paper examining “business bias” in workplace studies, concludes “in spite of claiming primary prevention as their aim, studies of potential occupational and environmental health hazards that are funded either directly or indirectly by industry are likely to have negative results.” The authors say “studies of workers in oil refineries conducted with total economic independence have identified possible environmental and health risks associated with exposures to more than 50 substances classified as toxic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic, such as asbestos, arsenic, benzene, chromium, nickel, polycyclic hydrocarbons, and silica. The IARC has therefore evaluated exposures in oil refineries as probably carcinogenic to humans. By contrast, other studies undertaken with the same areas of industrial production, supported by industry and of doubtful independence, do not report the existence of any risks.”

Gennaro V and Tomatis L. Business bias: How epidemiologic studies may underestimate or fail to detect increased risks of cancer and other diseases, International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, volume II, number 4, pages 356-359, October-December 2005 [pdf].Related editorial: Egilman DS, Rankin Bohme S. Over a barrel: Corporate corruption of science and its effects on workers and the environment, International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, volume II, number 4, pages 331-337, October-December 2005 [pdf]

The authors of studies critical of industry can find themselves facing a barrage of attacks, both from lawyers and the industry’s own PR machine. Corporations “work with attorneys and public relations professionals, using scientists, science advisory boards, front groups, industry organisations, think tanks, and the media to influence scientific and popular opinion of the risks of their products of processes. The strategy, which depends on corrupt science, profits corporations at the expense of public health,” the paper concludes. “The strategy developed by corporations working in concert with law and PR firms has been successful in limiting both liability and regulation.”

Rankin Bohme S, Zorabedian J, Egilman D. Maximising profit and endangering health: Corporate strategies to avoid litigation and regulation. International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, volume II, number 4, pages 338-348, October-December 2005 [pdf].

Britain is facing an occupational cancer epidemic that could be killing up to 24,000 people every year, four times official estimates, according to an authoritative new TUC report. The report by Hazards, the TUC-backed health and safety magazine, concludes that the incidence of occupational cancer in the UK is much higher, and suggests that it is between 12,000 and 24,000 deaths a year.

Risks 234. Burying the evidence, Hazards magazine, number 92, 2005.

Firefighters in British Columbia (BC), Canada with certain kinds of work-related cancer will find it easier to get official compensation, thanks to rule changes agreed by the provincial government. The new law, which was introduced after a lengthy campaign by firefighters’ unions, will recognise leukaemia, brain cancer and five other kinds of cancer as occupational hazards for long-time firefighters.

BC government news release, 31 October 2005. Risks 231.

Occupational exposure to volatile organic compounds led to a 48 per cent increase in breast cancer compared to an unexposed group of women.

Christopher P Rennix and others. Risk of breast cancer among enlisted Army women occupationally exposed to volatile organic compounds, American Journal of Industrial Medicine, volume 48, issue 3, pages 157-167, 2005.

The government and the ‘cancer establishment’ have been accused of failing to tackle the causes of breast cancer, particularly exposure to industrial chemicals. A report, by an umbrella organisation called the UK Working Group on the Primary Prevention of Breast Cancer, pulls together evidence on what is known of the effect of gender-bending chemicals, carcinogens and toxins on animals and humans.

Breast cancer – an environmental disease: The case for primary prevention, UK Working Group on the Primary Prevention of Breast Cancer, September 2005.  Report website and news release, 28 September 2005.