Occupational cancer

In Paramount Shopfitting Co Ltd v Rix, the former employer of the deceased, who had died of mesothelioma, appealed against a decision that the employee’s widow had suffered a loss of financial dependency, and questioned how that loss should be quantified.

A SCUBA equipment supply company has been fined £9,300 and ordered to pay £11,000 costs after providing a diving school with contaminated air that led to children being taken so ill during a training session that one ended up in an induced coma.

A wood working company and its director have both been sentenced after failing to assess and control the risks associated with asbestos materials on the firm’s premises.

Covid disruption, wide scale furloughing of workers and a 10% reduction in weekly hours worked has been accompanied by a 28% year-on-year increase in the number of work-related fatal accidents, according to Great Britain’s annual fatality statistics.

The ship-recycling industry has long been under pressure to reform health and safety. Now, it seems that slow progress is finally being made to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries.

The environmental and human impacts of shipbreaking are significant – it's one of the most dangerous industries in the world. Thanks to Covid, thousands of large, unwanted ships are being sailed to South Asia coastlines and dismantled using blowtorches, usually with a minimum of PPE, training or safety protocols. The ship-recycling industry has long been under pressure to reform health and safety – it has killed more than 400 workers in the past decade. We look at what OSH practitioners can do to raise awareness.

WorkSafe’s Life Shavers campaign will raise awareness of the need for workers who wear respiratory protective equipment (RPE) for work to be clean shaven.

The future of dust extraction must include more careful protection of the health of construction workers.

The EU Commission has issued three new amendments to REACH and an updated edition of radiation guidance has been published.

IOSH is calling on businesses to do more to prevent workers from exposure to asbestos as more accurate estimates indicate work-related exposure to this deadly material kills more than 230,000 a year globally.