Asbestos News

An inquest into the death of a UK welder who worked at nuclear power plants determined that the man died from asbestosis.

Raymond Stanley spent a number of years working at the nuclear facilities and during that time donned a protective suit made of asbestos, according to the Derby Evening Telegraph. However, instead of protecting Stanley from radiation, the suit exposed him to a substance that the World Health Organization says kills 107,000 people each year around the world.

"It's ironic, isn't it?" Derby deputy coroner Louise Pinder told Stanley's family at the inquest.

Pinder recorded Stanley's death as the result of an industrial disease and said that he was clearly exposed to asbestos on the job.

"There were two different types of employment, but during both of those he has been exposed to asbestos. He clearly had been exposed from 1956, right up to his retirement at 65," the coroner said.

Asbestos was once widely used as a flame retardant and insulator. However it was known by the mid-1960s that exposure to the naturally occurring mineral could cause malignant mesothelioma and lung cancer, in addition to asbestosis.