Document QJxLxLeqLzmm6kyaeYB1dEeO6

How asbestos can turn killer around the home By Oliver GilUe and David May HOUSEHOLDERS are to be a cancer risk: it may be that, like for two years before painting warned that asbestos esn be a radiation, any exposure carries the wails. danger in tbe home as well as in some risk. The increased nsk of common the factory The warning, from Mesothelioma is most com lung cancer in people exposed to the Department of Prices and monly found among shipworkers asbestos is particularly acute'if Consumer Protection, will point (who use quantities of the they smoke `Smoking and out that asbestos dust in the material) asbestos factory asbestos is a death ceruicate It home can cause serious lung dis workers and insulation workers increases the risk of lung cancer ease--asbestosis and cancer who are exposed to asbestos in SO nines," say* Professor Donald Alter an eight year dclav. I he their jobs, but a number of Bowes, -r Giaigow eco.opst who department ha* now agreed wnh people who lived near asbestos has uiaou a-, special sludyof a.-bestos manufacturers and users ^factories' or- shipyards^-though "'asbestos risks,, gr"' that .all asbestos products will without ever working in them, carnf i Earning laKbelT It i itie have also died from the disease. hrst lime a danger to Unle general In fact, people exposed to public has been officially asbestos dust for as short e recognised period as a day may be at risk. The hazards of asbestos might affect almost anyone: The handyman--dust from sawing and drilling asbestos sheet. One man who spent a day sawing up asbestos cement sheets, to make two sheds, suffered meso thelioma some 50 years later. Another victim, it transpired, had merely handled her brother's The motor mechanic--dust overalls when they were con Jroin brake and clutch drums. taminated with asbestos. Office workers and school- Any doubts that asbestos dust children--disintegrating asbestos is to blame for such cases are spread by ventilation systems. dispelled by experiments con Construction land demolition workers--dusty work through disregard of Safety at Work laws. ducted by tne Medical Research Council Pneumoconiosis Re search Unit at Penarth. South Wales. The experiments havb Even the housewife--a pos shown that mice exposed to blue sible danger from worn ironing or white asbestos ddM I6r~as pads and oven fittings. little as a day, in conditions Britain imports 172.000 tonnes epivillfll to unconti nf asbestos fibre every year: H__u_m__an g_ klHimK. nave develoi about half ;s made into building ' mesothelioma. materials - such as insulation the other principal hazard, board, tiles, paint and asbestos asbestosis, has also been found cement-products. in people wbo have been exposed Dr Muriel Newbouse. of the during do-it-yourself proiects. TUC Centenary Institute of One Irish couple developed the Occupational Hygiene, who is an disease after building two authority on asbestos diseases, bungalowa using a large amount says: " There is a real danger of of asbestos sheeting. Tbe wife cancer for do-it-yourself workers held the sheets while her hus who use a lot of asbestos. ' band sawed them. They then When asoestos dust is inhaled, lived in one of the bungalows it may cause two diseases. One. .1 long-term hazard, is ssbestosis. '' If simple, precautions are taken, contamination can be pre vented." he adds. " The dust that you can ieel when you breathe in u not the real problem. It is the fine invisible dust that gets to the bottom of the lungs that causes the nealth problems. This dust is carried on the wind and anyone living downwind from a factory or shipyard could be at nsk." The Home Office was first warned of the danger o[ asoestos dust from do-it-yourseif products in 1968, jn a report from the Standing Medical Committee of the Department of Health; but nothing was done. Early in 1972. the Advisory Committee on Cancer of the Department of Health repeated the warning: " Materials contain ing asbestos that are soid for domestic building and workshop use should, where practicable, be clearly marked as containing asbestos." Finally, after yet another re port in 1974. this time from the laboratory of the government chemist, the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection (formed in part from the Home Office's home safety section) be gan negotiating a warning sys tem with the Asbestos fnfomiacontinued on page 2 , .i formation of scar tissue on the lung which often Leads to prema- lure death. The other, liable to emit from much shorter-term exposure, is a type of cancer called mesothelioma, which is r.ital. Exposure can also increase -usceptibility to common lung vancer and cancer of the bower in the latter case, the danger may ante when asbestos is swallowed. All types of asbestos, not just he notorious ' blue - type, may - uuse cancer, but there is usually | delay of some 10 to 25 years Her exposure to asbestos before *><' cancer i* .ipp.irent one knows how Jjfi/c 'posure lo ;>>besto$ may bnnj? Where the peril from asbestos can lurk unsuspected GAF 16268 T. C. /o') 1 C I-' "7l4` Sc/A>'b''{ &pen- /974 ^3- GAF 16270