The Health and Safety Executive’s estimate of 4,000 asbestos related deaths a year falls well short of the real toll, campaigners and health experts have said. Consultant thoracic surgeon, John Edwards, commended the HSE campaign and said the safety watchdog’s figures are “an under-estimate, if anything” and Laurie Kazan-Allen, coordinator of the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS), said: “When mesothelioma and asbestosis deaths are added to fatalities caused by cancers of the lung, larynx, ovary and stomach – other cancers now linked to asbestos exposure – the huge price paid for the country’s failure to act on the asbestos danger becomes apparent.”
