Mesothelioma is a cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. It is a disease that develops over many years. It can take up to 50 years from exposure taking place before the disease itself takes hold. This time period is referred to as the latency period. As a result of this, it is usually (although not always) the more elderly members of society that worked in asbestos-hazardous environments, who get the disease.
Once the disease has been diagnosed, sadly it almost always has a fatal outcome. Progression of the illness, once it takes hold, is fairly rapid.
As of yet, there is no known cure for the disease, although extensive trials of a variety of drugs have been and are still being, undertaken.
Health and Safety executive figures show that in the last year for which data is available, 2016, there were 2595 mesothelioma deaths in the year. This figure has remained fairly static for about four years and is anticipated to remain around the same annually until the end of the decade, before a decline in numbers may be expected.
The same set of statistics also reveal that of the 2595 mesothelioma deaths, 2197 were male and 398 females. The HSE statistics show that the proportional split between male and female mesothelioma deaths has also remained similar over the preceding for years.
Why are there significantly more male than female deaths from mesothelioma?
The answer to this can be derived from the fact that mesothelioma (and indeed all asbestos related diseases) are, in the majority of cases, industrial diseases i.e. their origin is the workplace.
The fact that asbestos diseases have a long latency period is also an indicator as to why significantly more men than women are dying of mesothelioma. Most asbestos exposure occurred in the workplace. Most of those people who have recently died of mesothelioma or have recently been diagnosed with the diseases, will have been exposed to asbestos in the years, roughly between the 1950s and 1980s. Far fewer married women worked in, say, the 1970s than they do now, especially if they had young children. Statistics show that in 1973, the average percentage of women with children up to the age of 9, working full time, was no more than 20%. Compare this to the percentage of working mothers of children aged 3 or 4, in 2017, which was over 66%.
Consequently, in the 1970s and earlier decades, less women would have been working in industry than men by a considerable distance. As a result, they were much less likely to have primary exposure to asbestos.
Primary and Secondary Exposure to Asbestos
In the last sentence of the preceding paragraph, we referred to the phrase, ‘primary exposure.’ We have also just referred to secondary exposure to asbestos. What do we mean by these terms ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’?
Primary exposure happens when people are exposed to asbestos due to their occupation. As already outlined, in preceding decades, this was likely to affect far more men than women as a result.
Secondary exposure to asbestos took place when someone who worked in an environment where asbestos fibres were in the air, unwittingly carried those fibres home on their work clothes. This put the family members of the worker at risk of secondary exposure to asbestos. When this happened on a regular basis, those family members were in danger of getting asbestos disease themselves.
Mesothelioma Caused by Washing Work Clothes
It was common in the 60s and 70s for the wives and even older children of workers who came home covered in asbestos fibres, to wash their husbands or fathers work clothes. More often than not the laundry would be done by hand, several times a week, over many years. The level of such secondary exposure in the majority of cases was not sufficient to cause them to contract an asbestos related disease such as asbestosis or asbestos-related lung cancer. However, mesothelioma can be caused by a lower level of exposure to asbestos than is required for people to get other asbestos related diseases. This is the reason that almost all cases of asbestos disease resulting from the washing of work clothes, have been ones of mesothelioma.
There have even been reported cases where children of asbestos workers have got mesothelioma from hugging their fathers when they returned home from work still dressed in their asbestos laden work overalls.
For those seeking asbestos disease compensation where the disease was caused by these types of secondary exposure, there is an important point to note. If this type of exposure occurred prior to 1965, then a claim for compensation is likely to fail against the company that the husband or father worked for at the time. This is as a result of a Court of Appeal case which decided that until 1965, the risks of exposing family members at home to asbestos in this way, were not known about. It was only after an academic paper by Newhouse and Thompson was reported on the front page of The Times on the 31st October 1965, that it became known that relatively low levels of secondary asbestos exposure could cause mesothelioma.
Those unfortunate enough to get asbestos disease from secondary exposure are also at a disadvantage in terms of Industrial and Disablement Benefit (IIDB) which is payable to those who were exposed to asbestos in the workplace and have gone on to get asbestos disease. It is not payable to those who got asbestos illness through secondary exposure at home.
Women and Asbestos Disease Caused by Occupational Exposure
Whilst the focus of this article has been on women developing asbestos disease from secondary exposure, it would be misleading to give the impression that women have never developed asbestos disease from primary asbestos exposure in a work setting.
Recently there have been a spate of news articles about asbestos in schools. Many schools still contain asbestos which was used in the construction of the buildings and to lag boilers and pipes. By now it should have been removed, but this has not been the case in a great many of our educational establishments and a number of press articles and TV documentaries have highlighted the problem. The furore caused by these revelations, has helped to raise awareness of the issue of the dangers posed by the existence of asbestos in schools to both pupils and teachers.
The recent controversy has also highlighted the fact that asbestos disease is not just a blue-collar worker’s disease. Indeed the National Union of Teachers (NUT) recently reported that since 1980, at least 319 teachers both male and female, have died from asbestos exposure that they were subject to whilst working in schools.
The HSE published a report titled, Mesothelioma Occupation Statistics which studied both male and female deaths from the disease over a period from 1980 to 2000. It revealed that 674 women had died from mesothelioma as a result of pursuing their occupations in teaching, nursing, retail, catering, office work, textile work, as hospital porters and orderlies, sewing and embroidery work and unspecified ‘other service occupations.’
In Conclusion
Whilst the vast majority of mesothelioma deaths involve males, asbestos disease is not just something that only affects men working in heavy industry. Whilst every death from an asbestos disease is a tragedy, undoubtedly some of the most heart rending instances of these devastating illnesses have involved women who have never worked with asbestos i.e. the mothers and daughters of workers, who were unknowingly exposed to the fibres produced by blue and brown asbestos as a result of doing nothing more than trying to help keep their husband’s work clothes clean or of being given a hug from their father or husband, when they welcomed him home from a hard day at work.
As the recent cases highlighting the incidences of asbestos related deaths among the teaching profession illustrate, and as the HSE Occupation Statistics also show, asbestos disease is far from being a male, blue collar worker problem, alone.
If you have recently been diagnosed with mesothelioma or another type of asbestos disease and are considering making a claim, the team of expert asbestos and mesothelioma solicitors at Bridge McFarland are always on hand to offer you free, no obligation inital advice. Call us even if you are unsure whether you have got an asbestos disease, but have been feeling unwell and used to work with asbestos or wash the clothes of a loved one.
Call in complete confidence on 01482 320 620 and ask for James Burrell or Leanne Keating.
Alternatively you can email us on info@bmcf.co.uk or visit us online.
If you decide that you wish to pursue a claim, we are able to offer you a No Win, No fee service.
