At Asbestos Awareness we monitor the press daily to find items of news relating to asbestos and asbestos disease. It’s probably fair to say, that almost every day we read new stories about deaths from asbestos diseases, such as mesothelioma, asbestos lung cancer and asbestosis. We see appeals from the family of deceased asbestos victims, for former colleagues of their loved one, to come forward and help piece together a picture about how their father or brother came into contact with asbestos in their working lives. We read about the wives and daughters of former asbestos workers who have died from mesothelioma (the form of cancer caused only by asbestos exposure) as a result of inhaling asbestos fibres, whilst washing their husband’s/father’s work clothes.
Sometimes we read an article that really brings home to us, just what an absolute tragedy this thing called asbestos disease, is.
Both the national and local press recently picked up on the story of Phil Moreton of Gosport in Hampshire, who died on 2nd October 2019 of mesothelioma. According to the press reports, Phil was diagnosed with the disease, only 5 ½ weeks before his death. What really stood out about this very sad story, was that Phil was only 36.
Asbestos disease normally has a long latency period, doesn’t it?
The reason that people as young as Phil Moreton rarely get asbestos disease so early in their lives, is because of something called the’ latency period’. This refers to the length of time that takes place, between being exposed to asbestos and then being diagnosed. ‘Latency’ refers to the fact that during that time, the disease is latent, or dormant before symptoms start to appear. That time-lapse is usually anything between 20 and 60 years. For this reason, it is most common that people who get asbestos disease, usually do so later in life – from 55 onwards and more often than not in their 70s and 80s.
Certainly, to die of the disease of mesothelioma at such a young age as Phil was is rare.
Why did someone so young die from asbestos disease?
From the press reports on this story, we note that Phil’s widow Kirsty referred to the fact that as a young boy, Phil played on building sites and that also on one occasion, he fell through a roof whilst doing so. Asbestos was used in the building trade as lagging on pipes and boiler and it was also a component in cement boards, due to the fact that it is weatherproof. It was used in corrugated sheets, slates, water cisterns, gutters, downpipes and many other building materials.
It is, therefore, possible that Phil Moreton did get asbestos exposure from playing on building sites. Whilst asbestos in buildings is generally considered safe whilst left undisturbed, if it is damaged, it can still pose a threat. Perhaps by playing amongst rubble which contained asbestos, Mr Moreton further disturbed any asbestos-based materials that were lying around and that he inhaled asbestos dust in that way?
Phil also worked in the dockyards when he was 19, according to his wife Kirsty, although no indication is provided by the news reports as to how long that was for. Historically working in the dockyards was seen as a high-risk occupation insofar as the possibility of becoming exposed to asbestos was concerned. However, Phil would have been working in the dockyards in the early 2000s after the use of asbestos had been banned. Blue and brown asbestos were banned in 1985 and white asbestos followed suit in 1999. It is possible of course, that Phil might have inadvertently been exposed whilst working in the dockyards if ever his duties included ripping out old fittings that contained asbestos. However, by the early 2000s, the dangers of asbestos were well known, and one would have expected employers by then to be protecting their workers from the dangers of asbestos by providing them with some form of face masks.
All of this is pure conjecture. What is clear is that Mr Moreton was exposed at some stage in his young life, to sufficient asbestos to cause the disease of mesothelioma. The latency period in Phil’s case was of a shorter period than we often expect, perhaps as short as 10-15 years, or if the exposure did come from playing amongst builders’ rubble it could indeed have been 20-25 years.
What Phil Moreton’s case tells us about asbestos disease
One of the most important things to have come out of this tragic case is to remind us all, that asbestos still remains a real danger. It warns us that the dangers of asbestos are not confined to the past and that asbestos diseases such as mesothelioma are not illnesses that only affect older men who were exposed to asbestos back in the 1960s and 70s.
It also serves as a warning that with asbestos still present in many of our public buildings in particular, that there is a very real danger of people still being exposed to asbestos, whilst materials made from asbestos remain in those buildings. It reminds us too, that although asbestos is relatively safe whilst it remains undisturbed, the danger of it being disturbed is not just present when a building is demolished.
Asbestos dust clouds can be caused if asbestos starts to decay or if, for instance, in one of the many schools, hospitals or libraries where it is still within the fabric of the buildings, it gets damaged by people accidentally colliding with those walls that contain asbestos. Our article “Will Asbestos Disease Ever Become a Thing of the Past?”, looks at the problems caused by the presence of asbestos in public buildings, in more detail.
When we scan the nation’s press reports for news items about asbestos, certain types of article crops up frequently. These are reports from local newspapers about asbestos being left dumped by the roadside. There are so many of them that it is easy to become blasé about it.
Phil Moreton’s utterly heart wrenching and untimely death from mesothelioma is that we can never stop taking the threats posed by asbestos, anything but seriously. Very seriously. We need the dangers posed by asbestos to become a thing of the past and to be confined to history. Legislation to eradicate asbestos from every building in the country is, perhaps, long overdue.
AUTHOR
Leanne Keating is an experienced asbestos and mesothelioma compensation solicitor. She is a partner and Head of the Personal Injury and Industrial Disease department of Bridge McFarland LLP solicitors, based in Hull.
