A research study in the British Journal of Cancer predicts that one in 17 UK carpenters born in the 1940s will die of the asbestos-related lung cancer mesothelioma. Researchers calculate that the disease will also affect one in 50 plumbers, electricians and decorators and one in 125 other construction workers.
The study reveals that around two-thirds of all men and a quarter of women have worked in jobs involving potential asbestos exposure at some point in their lives. Each year in the UK, more than 2,100 people are diagnosed with mesothelioma and the mesothelioma death rate is now the highest in the world, with 1,749 deaths in men in 2005.
Lead reseacher, Professor Julian Peto of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Institute of Cancer Research said, "The risk is highest in people who were exposed to asbestos before age 30. By getting information on all the jobs people had ever done we have shown that the risk in some occupations, particularly in the building industry, is higher than we previously thought."
New regulations introduced in 1970 reduced exposure to asbestos in factories, but heavy exposure to the much larger workforce in construction and various other industries continued. Cancer Research UK's director of information, Dr Lesley Walker said, "We now need to ensure that accurate information for workers and regulation of the asbestos still in buildings keeps pace with what we have learned."
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