AboutMesothelioma.Net

In Australia, the Australian Workers Union is advocating to use economic stimulus monies to create a registry of buildings containing asbestos and to fund a 20-year removal program. Paul Howes, national secretary of the Australian Workers Union, called for a new national strategy to identify and remove asbestos from all homes, schools and worksites by 2030, The Australian newspaper reported.

“This slow-moving catastrophe has destroyed the lives of thousands of workers and will kill and maim thousands more over the next 20 years,” Howes said, according to the newspaper. Announcing the campaign in Hobart, Howes said it was a disgrace that Australia did not have a register or a national asbestos removal program.

He conceded that the Workers Union and other unions shared responsibility for the failure to act to limit exposure to asbestos in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

Breathing asbestos fibers is closely linked to serious respiratory diseases including lung cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs and abdomen.

A recent report by Safe Work Australia, which develops national policy on occupational health and safety issues, said the number of new cases of mesothelioma diagnosed annual in the nation down under had increased dramatically since at least 1982, the first year of complete national data.. In 2006, the most recent year of complete data, there were 486 deaths attributed to mesothelioma in Australia, the Safe Work report said.

The age-adjusted death rate in Australia due to mesothelioma was 23 deaths per million population, the Safe Work report said. That compares to a U.S. rate of about 14 deaths per million, according to a study by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.

The Australian article