TUC Risks 12th April 2008 reported that a global epidemic of preventable industrial cancers is killing hundreds of thousands each year because governments and employers are failing to take simple and effective preventive action.
Top cancer prevention experts and trade union officers and workplace reps from around the world, meeting in Scotland later this month to prepare an occupational and environmental cancer prevention strategy, will reveal the full extent of the problem and will call for the use of safer substances and processes and a phase out of the worst cancer-causing culprits. The event, hosted by the University of Stirling and supported by UK unions, Hazards magazine and the Hazards Campaign will reveal in industrialised nationals including the UK, far more people die each year from occupational and environmental cancers than from all road fatalities and murders combined.
Andrew Watterson, who leads the Occupational and Environmental Health Research Group at the University of Stirling and is co-organiser of the conference, said: 'Today, there are more people in more countries exposed to more cancer causing industrial substances than in any time in history. We use hundreds of cancer-causing substances in, quite literally, industrial quantities when there are healthier and frequently better alternatives. If we change work practices we can remedy the sick workplace rather than indulge in a hit-and-miss attempt at a cure.' He added: 'There is a silver bullet cure to occupational cancers, but it is not a drug or surgery.
Industrialised countries including the UK are failing to make the link between workplace pollutants and cancer, failing to give preventive advice and failing to provide support for the affected individuals.' Researchers in the UK and in New Zealand have estimated the price to society of each occupational cancer at between £1m and £2.5m. Preventive measures like substitution of harmful chemicals with safer alternatives could introduce healthier work methods, often at minimal cost.
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