‘Travel like you know them’: Road safety made personal
Earlier this summer, the UK government relaunched its THINK! road safety campaign, reminding people to ‘Travel like you know them’ to highlight the human cost of road traffic accidents. The...
Mesothelioma is a specific type of cancer that normally affects the lining of the lungs. It is uniquely linked to exposure to asbestos and typically takes between 15-40 years after the exposure to asbestos has occurred before these symptoms develop.
Exposure to asbestos can occur in a variety of ways, although such exposure was particularly common on the 20th Century, when asbestos was commonly used for purposes of insulation and lagging. Those people who might typically have been exposed to asbestos would include dockyard workers, plumbers, carpenters, builders and construction workers. However, it is also possible for mesothelioma to develop even after relatively low levels of asbestos exposure. Sometimes people may develop mesothelioma through secondary exposure, which means that they may have come into contact with asbestos after washing the asbestos clothes of loved ones which contained asbestos dust. Other people could be exposed to asbestos in the environment. Because mesothelioma takes so long to develop, the peak of mesothelioma cases in the UK has still not been reached. Asbestos is still present today in some older buildings, and it is important that it is not disturbed, as the release of asbestos fibres into the atmosphere could still pose a danger to those who inhaled it.
