UK Says Meso Will Peak in 2015
February 16th, 2007
A recently released report in the British Medical Journal warned that the number of cases of cancer affecting workers exposed to asbestos before the 1980s has yet to reach its peak in the United Kingdom.
Doctors say that, although mesothelioma already kills about 1,800 individuals in the UK each year, the disease’s peak is not likely to occur until about 2015 or later.
The report noted that the time between first exposure to asbestos, from sources like insulation and building materials, and people falling victim to the disease was “rarely less than 25 years and often more than 50 years”.
Thousands of workers in the United Kingdom were exposed to asbestos before regulations were tightened in 1980. Other countries have already reached a peak in their mesothelioma rates because bans and restrictions on asbestos were issued in the early to mid-1970s, some 10 years before the restrictions hit the British Isles.
Professor Thomas Treasure of Guy’s Hospital noted: “The peak of the epidemic is expected in 2015 to 2020 when the death rate is likely to be 2,000 per year in the UK.”
“The epidemic in the United States has probably peaked because of earlier awareness and action on asbestos imports,” he added. “Many countries are seeing the rising tide of an epidemic, and all doctors need to know how to recognize and diagnose this disease and what treatments are available.”
The doctors that issued the report agree that “there was nothing to be done now to prevent the disease in people exposed during the 1950s, 60s and 70s.”
“What we can do is recognize it early, treat it actively, and learn about best treatment with carefully thought out studies because we will be seeing many more mesothelioma [diagnoses] in the next 25 years. In the developed world alone, 100,000 people alive now will die from it.”
