Medical Professor tours UK to raise mesothelioma awareness
Professor Greg Deleuil, medical advisor to the Asbestos Diseases Society of Australia (ADSA), spoke in the UK town of Leeds recently as part of a tour to raise awareness about mesothelioma and to fight for justice and compensation for asbestos victims. Leeds is home to the JW Roberts factory, which Dr. Deleuil described as the source of one of the worst industrial tragedies to affect the area. A recent government report revealed that between 1981 and 2005, almost 600 Leeds residents died of mesothelioma.
In his speech to former factory workers and families of asbestos victims, Dr. Deleuil—whose own mother died of mesothelioma—showed photos and told stories of how asbestos has affected towns in Australia and the UK, describing the common tragedies and challenges facing communities thousands of miles apart. He described how school kids in the town of Armley, just west of Leeds, made “summer snowballs” from asbestos dust in the town school yard. Thousands of miles away in the Australian town of Wittenhoom, workers at the local blue asbestos mine made sand pits of the deadly dust for their children to play in. He showed a photo of mine workers participating in an annual competition in Wittenhoom to see who could most quickly shovel blue asbestos into a steel drum; ironically, the only man in the photo still alive was the competition winner. Two thousand Wittenhoom residents are expected to die from mesothelioma.
For the full story, go to the Yorkshire Evening Post.
