Government must act over new workplace cancer study, says TUC

The TUC has called for urgent action from the Government to deal with the huge death toll from work-related cancer. The call came following research published in the British Journal of Cancer Supplement into the incidence of cancers caused by work.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “The researchers have found that around 13,600 new cancer cases every year are caused by risk factors related to work. At the same time the research acknowledges that this is likely to be a conservative number and the real toll could be even higher.

“Of these thousands of workers, over 8,000 will be killed by the cancer they contract. This is a huge number, made all the more tragic by the knowledge that these deaths are preventable.

“If more action had been taken in the past to protect workers from known carcinogens such as asbestos, silica, diesel and mineral oils then many of the workers who will die this year from work-related cancers could have been saved.

“We must not let this terrible legacy continue. We should be making sure that carcinogens are removed from the workplace so that those working today will not develop cancers 20 or 30 years from now.

“No-one who reads this research can doubt that there is an urgent need for stronger safety regulation in the workplace, and for greater enforcement action against employers who take risks with their employees' health.”

The research report, funded by HSE, is called Predicting the future burden of occupational cancer. It can be viewed at: www.hse.gov.uk/cancer/research.htm

Article courtesy of RoSPA e bulletin