Children and teachers are still at risk of developing cancer due to asbestos-riddled classrooms
3
April
2013
Children and teachers are still at risk of developing cancer due to asbestos-riddled classrooms, trade unionists in Liverpool heard today.
The National Union of Teachers demanded urgent action after the Department for Education told MPs that schools had a "duty to manage" the deadly cladding material - but not to remove it. Officials told the Commons education committee last week that the government's policy was to "contain and actively manage asbestos and for its removal to be carried out correctly and safely (for example when buildings are demolished or refurbished, or when damage means that asbestos is no longer safely contained)." But teachers speaking at the Trade Union's national conference in Liverpool voiced outrage.
Newcastle upon Tyne delegate Ian Grayson stressed the issue was "literally a matter of life and death," as three-quarters of all schools still had asbestos cladding onsite. Vibrations can release floating asbestos fibres into the air where they are inhaled and became trapped in people's lungs - and there was no such thing as managing asbestos in a classroom full of active children, he said. "They can knock the wall, bang it. Goodness knows how many drawing pins we put in it. The only safe way to manage asbestos is to remove it."
General secretary Christine Blower said she was shocked that asbestos exposure was still an issue in 2013 - four decades after the public learned that asbestos could kill. Innocent people were dying every year while the government failed to act, she said. "Surely the lives of pupils and school staff are more important than the cost of asbestos removal from our schools?"
More than 253 teachers in Britain have died from mesothelioma since 1980, according to Health and Safety Executive records. A cancer of the lungs exclusively linked with asbestos exposure, the condition kills more than 2,000 people a year in Britain while more than 1,600 survivors remain on sickness benefits. Asbestos was used throughout Britain as a fireproof and insulating cladding from the '50s to mid-'80s despite an outcry over public health risks beginning in the '70s. White or chrysotile asbestos was still in use as recently as 1999 when all forms were finally banned in Britain.
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