Peter Williams, Partner,
features in this article about asbestos and
mesothelioma.
This article first appeared in
the Independent on Sunday, 22 November, 2009.
The authorities knew it was deadly more than 100
years ago, but it was only banned entirely in 1999. The annual
death rate will peak at more than 5,000 in 2016 – now MPs have a
chance to do the decent thing.
By Emily Dugan
They called it "the Barking cough". First
it began like any other: a tickle in the chest and slight pain on
breathing. Then, within a matter of months, the sufferer was in
agony, gasping for air and eventually suffocating to death as a
vicious cancer attacked their lungs waiting for the final
lingering, inevitable end which might not come for
decades.
The legacy of the Cape Asbestos factory in
Barking, east London, where asbestos-related cancers continue to
kill scores of residents, is a deadly one. Hundreds of people have
died since the factory closed in 1968.
The story of Barking's "industrial killing
machine" is a story repeated up and down the country where
thousands of Britons continue to be blighted by their industrial
past. Exposure to asbestos is now the biggest killer in the British
workforce, killing about 4,000 people every year – more than who
die in traffic accidents. The shocking figures are the grim legacy
of the millions of tons of the dust shipped to Britain to make
homes, schools, factories and offices fire resistant. It was used
in products from household fabrics to hairdryers.
Those most at risk are ordinary workers
and their families. Whether it was dockyard workers who unloaded
the lethal cargoes, or those in the factories exposed to the
fibres, or the carpenters, laggers, plumbers, electricians and
shipyard workers who routinely used asbestos for insulation – all
suffered. So did the wives who washed the work overalls and the
children who hugged their parents or played in the dust-coated
streets.
The exposure to asbestos in Britain is
largely historical but the death toll is alarmingly etched on our
future. Asbestos fibres can lie dormant on victims' lungs for up to
half a century; deaths from asbestos in Britain will continue to
rise until 2016.
Nor is it confined to Britain. The World
Health Organisation says asbestos currently kills at least 90,000
workers every year. One report estimated the asbestos cancer
epidemic could claim anywhere between five and 10 million lives
before it is banned worldwide and exposure ceases.
Asbestos was hailed as the "magic mineral"
when its tough, flexible but fire-resistant qualities were
realised, but for more than a century doctors and others have been
warning of its dangers. Asbestos dust was being inhaled into the
lungs where it could lie unnoticed before causing crippling
illnesses such lung cancer, asbestosis and mesothelioma which one
medical professor has described as "perhaps the most terrible
cancer known, in which the decline is the most cruel".
For people such as those in Barking who
have seen their neighbours, relatives and friends suffer this
excruciatingly painful and distressing death, there can be little
consolation when they discover the first signs of asbestos exposure
on their own lungs. These scars, known as pleural plaques, can be a
warning that they too may develop one of the fatal cancers that
inhaling the lethal fibres can result in.
On Wednesday, a meeting between MPs and
government lawyers will determine if people suffering from pleural
plaques can be paid the compensation that many believe they
deserve. For 21 years, sufferers of pleural plaques were
compensated by their employers for the scars caused by exposure to
the deadly fibres, but in 2007 this was overturned by a Law Lords
ruling. Politicians and medical experts accuse the Government of
pandering to the insurance lobby and claim they are now ignoring
crucial new medical evidence which reveals the physical and mental
toll of pleural plaques.
In Dagenham Working Men's club, up the
road from the site of the Cape asbestos factory, members of the
local GMB laggers' branch gather for a beer to discuss the one
deadly issue that continues to plague their members: asbestos.
Jimmy Parrish, branch chairman, has a list of 67 of their 300 or so
members affected by asbestos-related disease since 1998. Many of
them were diagnosed with pleural plaques and 30 are now dead.
"Hitler killed only one of my uncles," said Parrish. "Cape killed
the rest."
Jon Cruddas, MP for Dagenham, said the
lack of compensation for pleural plaques sufferers was scandalous.
"If that amount of death occurred in any other profession it would
be a national scandal," he said. "It's a working-class disease and
it doesn't get the attention it should do: it's a life sentence.
You've got to think about the corporate interests of insurance
companies and compare that with a lagger. There's no equivalent in
the power game here. The insurance industry says there's no link
between pleural plaques and fatal forms of asbestos disease, but
figures from the GMB suggest otherwise.
"It's extraordinary what's going on in our
area. It's an epidemic. There's barely a family that doesn't have
some experience of asbestos-related disease and it's going to get
worse; it's not even at its peak yet."
The Barking and Dagenham Asbestos Support
Group describes the Cape factory at Barking as an "industrial
killing machine". Between 1981 and 2005, the number of men dying
from the asbestos cancer mesothelioma in Barking reached 187,
making it the worst area of London for asbestos-related disease and
in the top 10 for the UK. It was not just workmen who suffered.
Barking has the highest rate of mesothelioma for women in the
country, with 60 women dying from the disease between 1981 and
2005. But these official figures are just the start. Since asbestos
can lie dormant for up to 50 years, many people have long since
left the area. Geoffrey Tweedale, an asbestos industry expert,
said: "No one knows the death toll, but it's possibly in the
thousands. Cape never had to release their records."
Although there were other sources of
exposure in the area, Cape's processing of the fibres was on a
different scale. The factory employed more than 10,000 people from
the time it opened in 1913 to its closure in 1968.
Cape insisted asbestos was harmless even
after the factory in Barking closed. Richard Gaze, former chief
scientist for Cape Asbestos, defended its record throughout the
1970s until he died of mesothelioma himself, aged 65, in
1982.
Workers were told that drinking half a
pint of milk would prevent illness and were left to toil in the
thick dust with no masks. Dust from the building spewed on to the
streets from giant fans, leaving cotton wool-like wisps to settle
on the streets. The streets "looked like Christmas", residents
recall. Children in Northbury School, which was adjacent to the
factory, used to gather up this "snow" and throw it at each
other.
Peter Williams
of Field Fisher Waterhouse, solicitors specialising in asbestos
disease, said, "I think Cape would have known that asbestos was
highly dangerous. From the people we've spoken to that worked in
the factory and lived in the surrounding area, no precautions were
taken and no one from Cape ever mentioned it was
dangerous."
Today, the Hart's Lane estate lies where
the factory used to be. The only visible sign of its industrial
past is a road name – Cape Close – but the legacy has lasted far
longer than anyone might have guessed. Successive tests between
1997 and 2003 found asbestos dangerously near the surface in the
soil of the estate.
Rita Ashdown, who died from mesothelioma
in 2002, was among the first to perish. She insisted her exposure
was from the 13 years she lived on the estate. The council's
insurers paid her £40,000 compensation but denied responsibility.
Now Dennis Gaffney is dying from the same disease and believes he
too was exposed after spending time on the estate in the
1970s.
A spokesman for Barking and Dagenham
council said it had commissioned "extensive independent experts'
studies" of the Hart's Lane estate, most recently in 2006. "The
studies concluded that any risk to the health of the estate's
residents or visitors from asbestos is insignificant," he
said.
On Wednesday MPs and others will meet
government lawyers to press for the controversial 2007 Lords
decision on plaques to be challenged. Andrew Dismore MP, who is
attempting for a second time to get a bill through the House of
Lords which would challenge the decision, said: "It's a manifest
injustice. The law treats psychological injury differently from
physical injury. The insurers are obviously trying to minimise
their loss and the Government also has a potential liability for
some of these cases. Come what may this issue has to be
resolved."
Those with pleural plaques are 1,000 times
more likely to suffer from an asbestos-related cancer than the rest
of the population, but a government-commissioned report which has
been used to justify the continued lack of compensation for
sufferers said that the risk of pleural plaques sufferers
contracting lung cancer was "very small". Dr Robin Rudd, the
country's leading expert on asbestos-related disease, said the
report had disregarded the latest evidence. "It's not a medical
question," said Dr Rudd. "Jack Straw is just using medical evidence
as a smoke screen. The report missed the last 10 years of medical
evidence."
A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said the
House of Lords decision had raised "extremely complex and difficult
issues which have required very careful consideration within
Government". She added that the issues were still being actively
considered "in order to be in a position to publish a final
response as soon as possible".
Cape claimed it was unaware of the
dangers, but as early as 1898, the chief inspector of factories in
the UK reported that asbestos had "easily demonstrated" health
risks. In Barking itself, alarm bells sounded in 1929 when the
medical officer of health wrote in his annual report: "Many people
in Barking are suffering from diseases of the lungs due to the
inhalation of asbestos dust." By 1945, the medical officer wrote
that asbestos was a "deadly and dangerous commodity" that should
probably be banned.
A company spokesman said, "Cape has taken
a very responsible approach to dealing with this issue,
establishing an independent fund over two and a half years ago for
the benefit of all claimants. The scheme covers all types of
disease, paying compensation to claimants where due."
It was the ill-health of those living near
the Barking factory that precipitated a nationwide shift in
attitudes to using asbestos. A 1965 report showed that there had
been a spate of mesothelioma cases among residents living near the
Cape factory. The factory closed three years later, but its legacy
will continue to be marked by graves.
Asbestos: Case studies...
The man exposed from visits to the
estate (after the factory was gone)
Dennis Gaffney, 84, is dying from
mesothelioma after being exposed to asbestos on the Hart's Lane
estate which was built on the site of the old Cape factory. In the
early 1970s, Dennis used to drive his wife Lily to see her mother,
Lizzie Potter, four times a week after work. Mrs Potter had just
moved into a brand new house built on the estate where the factory
had been. Building work was still going on at the time and Dennis
used to wait outside in his car with the windows down while his
wife chatted to her mother. "I had a new car and I didn't want to
get involved in women's talk, so I thought I'd leave them to it,"
explains Mr Gaffney. Sometimes when he got bored he would walk
around and watch what was going on with the builders. It is now
known that asbestos was not properly removed from the ground after
the factory was shut down, but as Mr Gaffney wandered around the
building site he had no idea of this. "There must have been dust in
the air because there was no other time I could have been exposed
to asbestos," said Mr Gaffney, who used to work in marketing. "I've
had a biopsy and I'm still uncomfortable on my chest, but they just
tell me to keep taking paracetamol."
The school boy whose 'snowball'
fights in the yard killed him
George Dickerson used to have "snowball"
fights with the thick white dust that gathered in the sports fields
of Northbury Infant School he had no idea that his game would prove
deadly. George, who spent his working life helping adults with
learning difficulties, died from mesothelioma in 2006 aged 76
because his schoolyard was always showered in asbestos dust from
the adjacent factory. His daughter Jane said: "He used to tell us
about huge extractor fans that churned chunks of asbestos dust on
to the lane that led to the school sports field. They used to
collect it and bash it all together for snowball fights. As soon as
he was diagnosed he knew it was from playing in it as a child. He
was angry that nothing was done to protect local
residents."
The wife killed by her husband's
overalls (and the family destroyed by dust)
Jacqueline Merritt spent years washing her
husband Don's overalls and shaking the dust off them. Don had
worked for Cape and his clothes were covered in asbestos. In 2004,
she died from mesothelioma, aged 60, and now her husband Don has
pleural plaques on his lungs and worries he'll go the same way. Not
only did he lose his wife to the deadly fibres, but his brother
Fred and his brother-in-law Len Sturrock also died from asbestosis.
"Me and Jacky had three boys together and they all missed their mum
when she died and still do. My brother Fred worked with it for just
eight weeks and he died 15 years ago. Asbestos has had a massive
effect on our family."
The child killed by the hug he
gave a family friend
Gordon Sanders, when he was still a
schoolboy, used to get visits most days from his parents' best
friend, Jimmy Dows, on his way home from work at the Cape factory.
He loved kids, and when he came round, still in his dusty overalls,
Gordon and his younger brother Philip would hug him and jump all
over him. After Jimmy left, Gordon's mother would shake out the mat
and leave newspaper to collect the dust. In 2005, Gordon, who was
by then a primary school headteacher, died from mesothelioma, aged
57. Philip also died from lung cancer in 1988, when he was 35. At
Gordon's inquest, the Coroner said that Philip's death was most
likely also related to exposure to the fibres. Gordon's wife Ethel
said: "The kids would crawl all over Jimmy because he was such a
nice bloke. Nobody had any idea how bad the dust was. It's such a
nasty disease. It's a feeling of gradually being suffocated. Gordon
felt robbed of his future life with us. It seems so unjust that
there was such a lack of regard for the health of people living in
the area."
The mother killed by a deadly
housing estate
Rita Ashdown had no idea when she moved
into her new home in 1972 that it would kill her. The flat was on
the Hart's Lane estate, built on the site of the old Cape factory.
In 2002 she died from mesothelioma, aged 62. Her son, Eddie, said:
"In 2001, tests showed that there was asbestos just a foot under
ground. It wasn't until she was diagnosed that we started to think
how she could have got it. We lived there for 13 years."
The lagger who mixed Cape's
asbestos with his bare hands
Graham Taylor is living on borrowed time.
When the 61-year-old was 15, he worked for Cape for a year, mixing
drums of asbestos with his bare hands and without a mask. Four
years ago he was frighteningly short of breath and saw a doctor. He
was quickly diagnosed with asbestosis, and told he had between two
and five years left. "When we'd finish work we'd look like we had
jumped in bags of flour. My lungs are turning to concrete. I've
been handed a death sentence and Cape wanted to quibble about
money."
The family wiped out by
asbestos
June Gibson's mother, Amy West, and her
aunt, Maud Raisbeck, died of asbestosis aged 43 and 28 in the 1920s
and 30s after working in the Cape factory. "The only compensation
my mum got from Cape was an Italian marble gravestone," June, 79,
said. "She weighed four stone before she died." Now June, who never
worked there herself, has shadows on her lung too.
The former pro-footballer who can
hardly walk
Peter Bragger, 60, was a semi-professional
footballer and former captain of the England under-18 team. Now
walking to the phone leaves him struggling for air. He worked for
Cape from 1964 as a lagger. "I was first diagnosed with pleural
plaques, but now I've got asbestosis. I've had a lower lobectomy
which removed part of my lung. My life has been cut
short."
The asbestos researcher
Marjorie Wells's job during the Second
World War was to work in the lab at the Barking factory checking
which lengths of asbestos fibres gave the best finish. Now 85, she
is dying of mesothelioma. "There was dust everywhere, but it didn't
worry me at all. We just carried on with our normal lives
afterwards," said Marjorie. "It was a shock when I found out that's
what was making me ill. Now I've got no energy at all."
The female factory
worker
Marian Lethbridge had trained as a
children's nurse, initially making only 15 shillings (75p) a week.
When she saw an advert for women to work in the Cape factory for
£4, she couldn't get there quickly enough. She worked there for
only nine months, when she was 16, but that was enough: she was
spinning the asbestos fibres, and they gave her no protection. Her
husband, Ted Lethbridge, said: "At the end of the day they would
get her to clean all the dust and she can remember it being so
thick it hung off the light fittings. You've got to wonder why they
were offering so much more money. She died of mesothelioma in 1997,
when she was 69, and she was in so much pain. She said to me, 'Just
let me die; I don't want any more.'"
Deadly history: The 'magic
mineral' turns devastating killer
* Asbestos is dubbed the "magic mineral"
after it is discovered that the rock minerals' fibrous qualities
provide heat-resistant material. It is used in factories and homes.
The same qualities made it deadly to workers exposed to the
fibres.
* In 1898, UK factory inspectors first
identified the "evil effects" of asbestos and its danger to
workers' health. By 1955 a study reveals the clear lung-cancer
risk. It was not totally banned in the UK until 1999, 101 years
after the alarm was first raised.
* This week MPs will meet government
lawyers about compensation for victims of the asbestos-related lung
scarring, pleural plaques, which has not been available since the
Law Lords controversially ruled against it in 2007.
* As well as pleural plaques, exposure to
asbestos fibre can result in three potentially fatal diseases:
asbestos-related lung cancer, mesothelioma (a deadly cancer that
strangles the lungs and other internal organs) and asbestosis (a
disease that attacks the lung tissues).
* The World Health Organisation estimates
asbestos is currently killing 90,000 people a year worldwide. One
authoritative study predicts up to 10 million people will die
because of it. We won't know the true extent in the UK until 2016
when the death toll is expected to peak.