Asbestos news
02/01/2008

Coroner records industrial disease verdict

An inquest has heard that a retired railway worker who died from lung cancer developed his condition as a result of exposure to asbestos in the 1950s and 1960s.

The coroner at the inquest decided that the man who was 67 years old at the time of his death had died as a result of an asbestos-related industrial disease.

While the man's smoking was also recorded as a factor in his death, exposure to asbestos in his years working as a coachbuilder on UK railways was considered to be a significant factor in his death.

Although the use of asbestos is now all but eradicated in the UK, its legacy lives on with thousands of people still dying from the asbestos-related conditions and hundreds each year making compensation claims for conditions such as mesothelioma and asbestosis.