AsbestosTimebomb - Government's Response

Details of Petition:

“We urge the Prime Minister to work towards implementing the five campaign demands. These are: A £10 million National Centre for Asbestos Related Disease to find better treatment, alleviate suffering and find a cure for mesothelioma. Compensation reinstated for victims of “pleural plaques” – scars on lungs caused by asbestos – after it was scrapped two years ago. Fair and equal compensation for asbestos disease sufferers who can’t trace the insurers of the bosses who exposed them, through a new Employers’ Liability Insurance Bureau paid for by the insurance industry. A public register of all asbestos surveys carried out on public buildings. The Health and Safety Executive must be given the resources to meet its own targets for inspecting asbestos removal work.”"

Read the Government’s response
On 17 October 2007, the Law Lords unanimously upheld a Court of Appeal decision that the existence of pleural plaques does not constitute actionable or compensatable damage. The Court of Appeal decision marked the end of a period during which it was possible for damages to be awarded for negligent exposure to asbestos, which had led to the presence of pleural plaques. In light of representations made by individuals and organisations who strongly disagreed with the Law Lords’ decision, the Government published a consultation into the issue on 9 July 2008, seeking views on the most appropriate means of responding to the House of Lords decision on pleural plaques.

In total, the Government received 224 responses to its consultation paper, as well as reports on the medical evidence on pleural plaques prepared for the Chief Medical Officer for England and Wales and by the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council. As Jack Straw indicated in the House of Commons on 21 July 2009, the Government will give further consideration to the issue of compensation for pleural plaques before publishing a final response.

The Daily Mirror’s campaign also calls for the establishment of an Employers’ Liability Insurance Bureau, which would act as a fund of last resort for claimants with mesothelioma who are unable to trace insurers. This would operate on a comparable basis to the Motor Insurance Bureau, where there is a similar captive insurance liability market, which covers accidents involving uninsured drivers. The Government appreciates that there are strong views in favour of an Employers’ Liability Insurance Bureau and is looking at this matter closely. While the Government does want to ensure fairness to individuals who cannot trace their insurer, it is conscious that there are complexities associated with an Employers’ Liability Insurance Bureau that would require insurers to take on a cost that they did not have an opportunity to reflect in their business models. The Government is looking closely at the arguments for and against an Employers’ Liability Insurance Bureau, in the context of the wider work on tracing.

The Government understands the situation facing those individuals who struggle to trace a relevant insurance policy. While the vast majority of individuals, around 98 per cent, are able to find an employer or insurer to claim against, this does not in any way reduce the distress and difficulty faced by those who cannot. The Government also fully accepts that these individuals are disproportionately likely to be suffering from diseases such as mesothelioma and that, on top of a terrible disease, they face a lack of compensation. This is why the Government set up the Pneumoconiosis etc (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979 and 2008 Mesothelioma Scheme.

It is, of course, also important that we continue to look for ways of improving tracing levels. The Employers’ Liability Code of Practice, a voluntary code operated by the insurance industry, was established in 1999 to ensure insurers retain, and do their best to search, those Employers’ Liability policy records that exist. While the code has led to some improvements, there are still too many people who are left without help. The Government has been working hard across Government departments and with the insurance industry on this matter. We havemade it clear to the industry that we think there is room for improvement and that the industry must do all it can to make this happen. The industry has responded positively to this challenge and the Government is currently exploring with them a number of options for improving the situation. One possibility is the introduction of an Employers’ Liability Tracing Office, which would build and maintain a database of all current and future Employers’ Liability policies and those historic policies that have been identified. A Tracing Office along these lines would be a significant benefit to many thousands of people, helping them to trace policies and receive compensation in the future.

Work with the Association of British Insurers on the possibility of a Tracing Office, and other proposals, continues and the Government hopes to be able to say more following the Summer Recess.
The Daily Mirror’s campaign also calls for the establishment of a National Centre for Asbestos-Related Disease to advance medical research in this area. The Government believes a powerful case has been made and, as Jack Straw made clear on 21 July 2009, is currently considering proposals to make the UK a global leader in research for the alleviation, prevention and cure of asbestos-related diseases. This work is on-going.

Finally, the campaign raises concerns about the level of resourcing in the Health and Safety Executive to meet targets for inspecting asbestos removal work and calls for a public register of all asbestos surveys carried out on public buildings. The Health and Safety Executive has recruited the number of inspectors agreed in ministerial targets set at the last Spending Review. However, the primary duty to manage risk rests with the duty-holder of the premises. Inspection is an intervention for checking and enforcing duty-holders to manage their responsibilities, and is not a replacement for them.

Since 2004, there has been a legal duty on those in control of buildings to manage asbestos, which the Health and Safety Executive believes is sufficient provided there is compliance. It requires duty-holders, those with maintenance and repair responsibilities for non-domestic premises, to take reasonable steps to identify the location and condition of asbestos-containing materials. The duty-holder must then use this information to make a written record and management plan to ensure that the risks of exposure to asbestos are properly managed. It is also a requirement of the legislation that this information is made available to anyone liable to disturb it, such as contractors or maintenance workers.

The meaning of ‘public buildings’, to which the Daily Mirror campaign refers, has been clarified as ‘non-domestic buildings’. Such a register would therefore cover all buildings to which the ‘duty to manage’ regulations apply, and compliance with these duties achieves the objectives of the campaign. A national register for public buildings would be costly to administer, problematic to accurately maintain and have little or no effect in reducing the health risks associated with asbestos. The Health and Safety Executive has been successful in increasing levels of awareness through targeted media campaigns, such as the recent ‘Hidden Killer’ campaign and this approach, in conjunction with a robust enforcement strategy, is the best way of reducing the number of deaths caused by exposure to asbestos.

The Health and Safety Executive is also responsible for the Asbestos Licensing Permissioning Regime. This is the primary tool for regulatory control of asbestos removal contractors carrying out high risk asbestos removal work. The work of licensed contractors is monitored, including by inspection, to ensure compliance with the requirements of the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 2006 and any conditions set out in the particular licence.

Old Asbestos Ads (click on picture to see enlargement)

Court Of Appeal

Trigger Litigation Issue
The next round in the Trigger litigation Issue will be heard in the Court Of Appeal for three weeks in November 2009. As soon as we have the exact date we will post it on the site and also keep it updated.

For those of you not familiar with the issue please look on previous postings in November 2008 onwards, you can also look on our website http://www.bobtolleyfund.co.uk/.

Breathe Photography Exhibition Australia

Breathing is the basis of life.
It is a tragic fact that thousands of men & women die each year from diseases caused by inhaling asbestos fibres

In a cruel irony, the very strength and resilience of the asbestos fibre, once hailed as a “wonder fibre”, is the undoing of many who breathe it in. Once it has embedded in a person’s lung, the tiny fibre may give rise to cancers and lung disease which eventually rob the patient of the very capacity to draw breath.

Many more healthy, breathing men & women will fall victim to fibres that already lodge like tiny time bombs in their lungs. These are the workers, renovators and random exposed who will become disease statistics as death rates peak in about 2025.

Asbestos leaves a cruel legacy. In the dread that it engenders, in the pain and suffering it brings to so many families, in arrested dreams, in the sheer contemplation of what may lie ahead, it knocks us breathless.

One particularly poignant legacy is the widow. She faces her loss daily. How does she cope? What strengths does she draw from her husband’s memory? What encapsulates her resolve to live a meaningful and purposeful life?

This exhibition, simply titled Breathe, is dedicated to those widows united by that loss, and to their men who have gone.

Theirs is a story about strength, resilience and the will to breathe.

http://www.chrisirelandphotography.com/

British Lung Foundation Study

BLF funded study finds new test for asbestos cancer
A study funded by the British Lung Foundation has resulted in a more sensitive test for the asbestos-related cancer, mesothelioma being developed by scientists. The test developed by a team at Oxford University looks at levels of a protein closely linked to the cancer in fluid around the lungs.

Currently, doctors carry out pleural fluid cytology - a lab test which looks for cancerous cells. However the Oxford research team, say that this is not a very sensitive test.
In this study they tested over 200 pleural fluid samples from patients who had been referred to a specialist respiratory clinic. They then looked at levels of the protein meothelin which is released in high quantities in the pleural fluid of most patients with mesothelioma.

It was found that the levels of the protein were almost six times higher in patients with the cancer than in those with secondary cancers, and 10 times greater than those with benign conditions. Professor Stephen Spiro, Deputy Chairman of the British Lung Foundation said:
“This study is an important step forward, as it could lead to earlier diagnosis and better treatment of mesothelioma which is vital as currently most patients diagnosed with this disease live less than 12 months.
“This simple and non invasive test could help improve the survival time of those diagnosed with mesothelioma and give hope to patients and their families affected by this cruel cancer”.

The study has been published today in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.