Lethal work

A history of the asbestos tragedy in Scotland

Ronald Johnston and Arthur McIvor, Tuckwell Press, 256 pages, paperback, pst12.99

At present, around 3,500 die each year from asbestos exposure in the UK and it has been estimated that asbestos will have killed around 250,000 men and women between 1995 and 2029.

Scottish workers have suffered especially severely owing to the prominence of heavy industry and shipbuilding on Clydeside which has one of the highest rates of asbestos-related disease anywhere in Europe.

This book gives a vivid account of this tragedy back to the first asbestos factory established in Scotland in the 1870s, and the story is made all the more harrowing by the inclusion of the authors' interviews with many of the sufferers.

The attitudes and actions of all those involved are discussed, including the employers, the state, the doctors, the unions and the asbestos pressure groups.

The events show graphically how the employers consistently placed profit above the health of their workers. The slowness of the state in taking legislative action is almost as discreditable. The authors conclude by stressing that the lessons of the past must be fully absorbed so that such a tragic experience is never repeated.