UK workers aren't being protected against cancer

An occupational cancer epidemic could be killing up to 24,000 people in the UK every year - four times the official estimate, and one-sixth of all UK cancer deaths - according to a report in Hazards magazine.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) estimates that just 6,000 deaths a year in the UK (4% of the annual cancer death toll) are caused by exposure to carcinogens at work. But even its own research facility believes that the true figure is far higher (see last month's Workplace Report).

Hazards agrees, pointing out that the estimate used by the HSE is lower than many other estimates of occupational cancer levels calculated by researchers over the years.

The report points out that the US research on which the 4% estimate is based had a number of shortcomings - for example, it was based on a limited range of cancers and carcinogens. Experts have since established many more occupational causes of cancer, from pesticides to passive smoking, which demand a fresh look at the issue.

As well as listing a wide range of carcinogens that are still in widespread use, Hazards calls for:

* a government-funded national occupational cancer prevention and awareness-raising campaign;

* a revised estimate of occupational cancer levels;

* a phasing-out of the most dangerous, cancer-causing chemicals, with companies forced to investigate the use of safer alternatives; and

* a national system of occupational health records.

"The UK's complacent occupational cancer estimates are cribbed from one dangerously flawed and now discredited US study which deliberately excluded most workplace cancers and which 25 years ago was greeted with undisguised glee by the most polluting, toxic industries," said Hazards editor Rory O'Neill. "The result is thousands of new cases of occupational cancers each year which could and should have been prevented by simple workplace measures - for example, the introduction of safer workplace substances and processes. Occupational cancer needs to become a major prevention priority."

The Hazards report, "Burying the evidence", is available at www.hazards.org/cancer/report.htm