Asbestos deaths in the hundreds, study shows

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Hundreds more New Zealanders have died from an asbestos-related disease than is recorded on death certificates, says a researcher.

The lung-disease asbestosis was previously blamed directly for killing 44 men between 1988 and 1999.

But research published in the Medical Journal says it contributed to the deaths of 264 men in those 12 years.

Most of the deaths were blamed on lung or pleural cancers, but such diseases can be caused by exposure to asbestos fibres, often many years earlier.

Researcher Dr Pam Smartt, of the Christchurch School of Medicine, believes even the larger figure vastly understates the seriousness of an asbestos epidemic fuelled by widespread workplace exposure to the deadly mineral between the 1940s and 1980s.

"The legacy of this exposure is an ageing population of men with asbestos-related disease, which includes some of the most debilitating malignant and non-malignant diseases of the lung," she says in her Medical Journal paper.

A former Auckland Medical School researcher with whom she co-wrote an earlier paper, Dr Tord Kjellstrom, has warned that diseases from inhaling asbestos dust could eventually kill up to 12,000 New Zealanders.

Dr Smartt's research did not include the asbestos disease mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung lining which takes even longer to develop than asbestosis but is believed to kill about 60 New Zealanders a year.

She suspects the under-reporting of a health problem with a potentially huge economic as well as social cost has much to do with the far greater risk of asbestos-related diseases faced by cigarette smokers.

Smokers exposed to asbestos are 10 times more likely to suffer lung cancer than non-smoking asbestos workers, and five times more so than non-exposed smokers.

Dr Smartt believes many doctors assume tobacco is solely to blame when examining smokers with lung cancer, overlooking the possibility of asbestos exposure.

Her research is prompting a Medical Association call to doctors to be more watchful.

Association chairwoman Dr Tricia Briscoe said 20 per cent to 40 per cent of adult New Zealand males were likely to have had some form of exposure to asbestos, but related diseases were hard for doctors to diagnose without knowledge of patients' work histories.

"This level of exposure means it is important for doctors to be aware of the risks when doing medical check-ups and consultations," she said.

Former asbestos workers who still smoked needed to stop immediately.

Dr Smartt told the Herald that asbestos was the cause of debilitating occupational diseases for which sufferers and their families deserved to be compensated.

Adequate reporting was vital for holding its multinational producers accountable.

Her research found men who worked in building trades before asbestos was banned in construction materials were the group most at risk, but no major occupational category was immune.

Asbestos victims' lawyer Hazel Armstrong welcomed the research as timely because of the Accident Compensation Corporation's intention to appeal against a district court decision awarding almost $100,000 to the estate of an Auckland man exposed to asbestos dust in the 1960s.

Ms Armstrong, who acts for the estate of former fitter and welder Ross Lehmann, disclosed yesterday that compensation review officers had since ordered the ACC to pay similar sums to the families of three other dead asbestos victims.

But all four families were concerned about the corporation's appeal over Mr Lehmann's case, which the High Court would hear next year.

"We are trying to tell the Government this is a legitimate area for which to compensate workers, and we are disappointed it feels it can't accept the District Court judgment."