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UK’s Mirror’s Asbestos Campaign Hopes Dashed by ConDems

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In 2009, the Daily Mirror, a UK-based print and online newspaper, launched what it labeled a “Time Bomb” Campaign aimed at reducing asbestos’ disease legacy, providing financial support for ongoing research, fairly compensating asbestos disease victims, creating a record of asbestos surveys, and funding ongoing asbestos inspection goals.

 

In order to further this agenda, the Mirror proposed:

 

  1. Funding of a £10-million National Centre for Asbestos Related Disease to identify treatment options with the intent of finding a cure for malignant mesothelioma

 

  1. Reinstating a fund, abandoned in 2007, which offered compensation to victims who had developed lung scars (pleural plaques) as a result of asbestos exposure (see House of Lords' decision in Rothwell v Chemical and Insulating Company Limited and Others)

 

  1. Providing fair and equitable compensation, through a new Employers' Liability Insurance Bureau funded by the insurance industry, for those suffering from asbestos-related disease who are unable to identify insurors of the companies that caused their asbestos exposure

 

  1. Creating a publicly available archive of all public buildings that have undergone asbestos surveys, and the extent of the contamination documented

 

  1. Insuring that the Health and Safety Executive has the resources it needs to complete its own asbestos removal inspection targets

 

Mirror staff felt at the time (and still feel) that the campaign is essential to insuring adequate asbestos safety throughout the UK, especially after an Aug. 13 report from Unisom showing that some UK schools – notably four schools run by Waltham Forest Council in east London – don’t have asbestos hazard management plans in place. Unisom is Britain's largest public sector trade organization, with over 1.3 million members registered.

 

The UK, like the U.S., has an asbestos-management-in-schools protocol, established in November of 2006 by the Health and Safety Executive as part of Control of Asbestos Regulations, regulation 4.

 

Enforcement is assigned to the Field Operations Directorate, or FOD, the Hazardous Installation Directorate, HID, and also by the Offshore Division (OSD). Unfortunately, the Health and Safety Executive, like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is understaffed and underfunded to address all the potential asbestos abuses or policy lapses that arise.


The Mirror’s asbestos campaign is also back by Trades Union Congress (TUC) General Secretary Brendan Barber, who admitted that such measures were essential to insure that future asbestos victims received “as much support as possible”.

 

In 2009, then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown committed to action, within weeks, to help asbestos victims, including providing compensation for pleural plaque sufferers. And in January of this year, Mirror staff felt they had indeed won a victory when former Justice Secretary Jack Straw promised £5,000 to each victim if they had filed a claim before the courts ruled in 2007 that they were not entitled to payouts.

 

Now, some eight months later, the ConDems - a coalition government formed from Conservative and Liberal Democrats – are refusing to acknowledge the pledges made by the outgoing administration; promises that included not just pleural plaque compensation but the £10-million research center (the key demand in the Mirror’s two-year campaign).

 

This turnaround is led by Tory Health Minister Simon Burns, who during the last session of the House of Commons refused to even acknowledge the pledge, even when confronted by a direct question.

 

Instead, in a written response that obscures more than it reveals, Burns wrote that future asbestos-related disease spending would be determined by the “success of the individual bids”. That is, asbestos as a dire threat to human health and well-being would have to compete on the same playing field as such interesting but non-critical issues the population density of indigenous species, or the importance of crop rotation in food production.

 

UCATT General Secretary Alan Ritchie called Burn’s evasion “sickening but unsurprising”, and noted that those most affected by asbestos diseases are working class poor, and therefore not as important in the grand scheme of things.

 

According to Labour MP Stephen Hepburn, who posed the critical question to Burns, asbestos-related diseases kill 2,000 UK citizens a year, and mesothelioma is now the 12th most common cause of death among UK males.

 

The Mirror further reported last week that union representatives who are pushing better compensation for asbestos disease victims have been held out of talks designed to resolve compensation issues for the terminally ill and their loved ones.

 

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cancer mesothelioma asbestos exposure