Stark warning triggers a new campaign by The Daily Mail and GB News
The Daily Mail and GB News have launched a new campaign to remove asbestos from schools and hospitals. Given that they weren’t concerned about this during 14 years of Tory rule, some people think their aim is simply to embarrass the new Labour government. However, their eye-catching statistics come from work carried out by the National Education Union (The NEU).
Statistics reveal that many thousands of students and teachers have already died from mesothelioma after exposure to asbestos in schools
Using a methodology developed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (The EPA), the NEU’s experts estimate that so far 1,400 teachers and support staff have died from mesothelioma caused by asbestos exposure in schools before 1995. In addition, using the EPA methodology, they estimate that 12,600 students, who were exposed to asbestos at school during the same period, will also die from mesothelioma.
However, they go on to say that the EPA did not take account of the increasing life expectancy of people born since 1940. Mesothelioma tends to develop after a latency period of up to 60 years, or even longer. This means that the true number of students who are predicted to die from mesothelioma is actually 25,200.
The risk has got six times worse since 1995
Unfortunately, since 1995 asbestos has continued to be a hazard in schools. The NEU’s experts point out that disturbed hidden asbestos lurks in many school buildings which have passed their expected life span. These schools should have been rebuilt or refurbished by now, and the asbestos should have been removed before it became even more unsafe than it was previously. The experts say that the microscopic fibres shed by deteriorating asbestos ‘can pass unseen via gaps into occupied areas’. There is a sixfold increase in the risk of this happening after a school has gone beyond its life span. School managers are often unaware of the actual level of asbestos in these occupied areas and do not draw attention to the higher risks when applying for funding.
Almost all the UK population is likely to have attended a school with asbestos in it
The NEU report points out that ‘almost all the UK population is likely to have attended a school with asbestos’ in it. The NEU’s experts estimate that ‘that tens of thousands of school staff and students have already died from mesothelioma due to asbestos exposure before the mid-1990s and hundreds of thousands of staff and students are predicted to die… due to exposure in school buildings after the mid-1990s.’ If the average life expectancy were to peak at 80, the number of student deaths is predicted to be 151,200. If it were to peak at 90 the predicted number of deaths would rise to 264,600. The number of teachers and support staff who are predicted to die from asbestos exposure is more than 8,400.
The prime minister has said we absolutely need to reduce the risk
Perhaps this is why Sir Keir Starmer was quick to respond to the new campaign. On the 21st of October he said, ‘Asbestos is an ‘awful killer. Whatever we need to do to reduce that risk, we absolutely need to do.’
Two of our service users have been interviewed for the campaign
Two of our service users, Sue Farrell and Emily-Jane Scandrett, have already featured in the new campaign in the Daily Mail and on GB News. You can read what they said here:
Read the NEU’s full report
To read the full report from the NEU click here.