Document gELM9oDG4pXgnVGd0kG859bZL

FILE NAME: Asbestos Sacks and Bags (ASB) DATE:EZ DOC#:ASB0 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION:E,ZZ :Hazards of asbestos dust Asbestos dust may be more im:id!ously lethal than many authorities believe. The current issue of the mecUcal journal Cl The Lancet" reports the death of a man of 48 from the coincident development of asbestosIs and an wociated form of cancer. His only exposure to asbestos dust had occurred thirty years ago when he worked for six months as a grinder in an asbestos factory. The case raises several issues, all of socIal Importance. First, under the existing structure of the Prescribed Diseases Regulations, no claim for disability can be made for the malIgnancy associated with asbestosis or the asbestosis itself unless exposure to asbestos can be established aB having occurred after July 4, 1948, which is MJ: a purely administrative date relating to the intro- duction of the regulations. It la quite clear that the these of Sodal Security should review tlODl In their appUcaUoD to all diseases which have a tong Induct.1on period9 such as bone necrosis following work in compressed air, and various forms of tumour whose association y,1th worldng envlronmen,ts is only now becoming clear., Second, attention should be given to those points In the carriage of bulk asbestos which fall outside the 1931 A-sbestos Industry Regula- tions. These regulations are at present being amended because It la now reali.sed that they are inadequate In the llght of present knowl- \. ' ~fI ~NN.\- :L~('UC:, edge, yet they are still taken as PrQviding safe exposure llm1ts in such places as docks and transient storage warehouses. Fears expressed by dockers handling asbestos have been allayed by an assurance -that malignancy cannot result unless exposure 'has been heavy enough to cause oy asbestosis. This is a dangerous assumption, no longer supported informed medical opInion. It- Is all too obvious that the uncontrolled tipping of asbestoS waste, like that which took place in Buxworth, in Derbyshire, presents a serious hazard which needs to be suppressed by all possible means including pro~r legisla- tion. There is no longer any question 0: " safe" exposure to asbestos, but there is an urgent need of new rigorously controlled methods of handling and packaging. Further, there are experiments UDder '1111 wblch propose uphalt. asbestos mIxtures for road surfaces. If these prove lucceaful maD)' thousands of tons of asbestos inigbt be used on the roads each year. With wear, would such a surface produce dust, and would asbestos particles begin to reach the atmosphere along all the roads where It was used? Unless these questions can be answered with a stringently proven negative, any authority which uses such surfaces experimentally might be gullty of an action which both morally, and in Its results, la as serious as the indiscriminate exposure of a population to high levels of IonIsing radiation. o