Cancer Epidemic set to Claim 200,000 Lives
Professor Julian Peto, Cancer Research UK chairman of epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said around 90,000 people would die from mesothelioma and a further 90,000 from asbestos-related lung cancer.
Professor Peto said those exposed to asbestos in the 1960s and 70s were now suffering an epidemic of mesothelioma which will peak in less than 10 years.He estimated that 90,000 people will die from this particular form of cancer and revealed that 30,000 had already done so.
"Mesothelioma is on a completely different scale from any other industrial cancer disease in the world," he said."The highest risk group of all is carpenters. One in 10 of all carpenters in Britain of that generation could be affected. "Mesothelioma has already killed twice as many people as cervical cancer. Instead of young women, those affected are elderly working class men."
Mesothelioma, which is a relatively unknown form of cancer, is hard to diagnose and there is no cure - only palliative treatment Prof Peto said there was significant evidence that women and children who lived with men exposed to asbestos in the 1960s had a chance of contracting the disease.
He said the dangers of exposure to asbestos had been known since the 1930s: "Historically, it is incomprehensible that this has happened. That Britain should have made this extraordinary industrial error seems hard to understand."
