Training to beat asbestos deaths

摘要

MORE THAN 230 PEOPLE lost their lives in accidents at work in 2003-04, with the largest group of fatalities taking place in construction. Less well known is that 15 times that number die each year as a result of past exposure to a common building material used right up until the 1990s. The lethal characteristics of asbestos were concealed for decades by the long gestation of the diseases it inflicts, and the annual toll of 3,500 deaths in the UK will continue to rise until the legacy of the 1970s, when asbestos use was at its height, has passed. Many of the work activities involving potential exposure to asbestos, such as shipbuilding and locomotive building, have long ceased, but a quarter of the people currently dying have backgrounds in building maintenance and construction. Maintenance workers are still at risk from asbestos contained in buildings constructed before 1985, and the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations of 2002 aim to save 5,000 lives by cutting the incidence of unknowing exposures.