Sufferers in a fight for care

9:00am Friday 13th January 2006

SUFFERERS from the "Swindon Disease" are to demand better care from the Government. The British Lung Foundation has named February 27 as the first Action Mesothelioma Day.

MPs and members of the Action Mesothelioma Group will present a charter to 10 Downing Street demanding better care and treatment, better protection for employees and more funding for research.

Mesothelioma known as Swindon Disease because of the high number of cases in the town is a malignant tumour that grows within the thin membrane that lines the chest and abdomen.

The condition is especially prevalent among former British Rail workers, who were exposed to harmful asbestos before its effects were widely known.

Brigitte Chandler, a specialist lawyer in industrial disease at Charles Lucas Marshall solicitors, in Old Town, has already welcomed the news.

"This is a very good idea," she said.

"This is an illness which is affecting an increasing number of people, so raising awareness of it will hopefully help to reduce the numbers of people exposed to the dangers."

Mesothelioma can develop more than 40 years after a person has stopped working with the hazardous material.

Because of this delay it is feared the number of cases in the UK will continue to rise until 2015.

Meanwhile, sufferers of pleural plaques the first stage of the disease face an anxious wait to see if they will get compensation.

Law lords are expected to make the decision at any time.

Norwich Union appealed against a High Court ruling that allowed people who develop pleural plaques to claim thousands of pounds.

Michael Kent QC, representing the insurer, said that the condition did not lead to diseases including lung cancer and the invariably fatal mesothelioma.

He therefore argued that insurance companies should not have to pay out because medical experts were agreed that the plaques were symptomless and showed only that the sufferer had been exposed to asbestos.

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