In the keynote speech: Treatment and Research of Asbestos Diseases in Australia, Dr. Greg Deleuil, Medical Adviser to the Asbestos Diseases Society of Australia, described a decision taken last year (2002) to set up the (Australian) Asbestos Working Party "to identify research strategies aimed at reducing the incidence of asbestos-related cancer particularly mesothelioma, or curing these diseases." The budget for this program totals Aus$110 million over the next ten years. It is expected that this money will come from those with significant asbestos liabilities such as insurers, the national government and employers. The conditions which created the tragic legacy of disease and death in Australia were graphically shown by Dr. Deleuil with a breath-taking collection of photographs depicting the reality of life in an Australian asbestos mining town. Although the Wittenoom crocidolite (blue asbestos) mine was operational for only 23 years, it has produced an epidemic of asbestos disease in Western Australia amongst former workers, their families and town residents. Many young adults, who had lived in Wittenoom as children, have died from asbestos-related diseases in their 20s and 30s. A picture of race day in Wittenoom showed horses running on a blue track made from asbestos tailings. A photograph of children competing in sack races on the same track told its own story, while the image of men competing to fill 50 pound storage drums with asbestos tailings elicited gasps of disbelief; the 1st and 2nd prize winners and the judge of the asbestos shovelling contest have all died from asbestos-related disease. Within days of the seminar, Chairperson Michael Clapham wrote to MP Hazel Blears, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department of Health, informing her of the event and requesting that "an evaluation is done of some of the new treatments available to victims in other countries with a view to developing a co-ordinated and integrated approach to research and treatment of UK victims." He asked that a meeting be set up so that patients, specialists, trade unionists and politicians could discuss the way forward.
In view of the scarcity of research funds in the UK, the work of a small charity: the June Hancock Mesothelioma Research Fund has been of real significance. Named after a remarkable Yorkshire woman who took on UK asbestos giant T&N plc and won a landmark victory for victims of environmental asbestos exposure, the Fund contributed œ20,000 towards the costs of a pilot study (MESO-1), which has now been expanded to a national trial (MS01); claimed to be the first randomized malignant pleural mesothelioma trial comparing active symptom control (ASC) with ASC + chemotherapy in terms of survival and quality of life (newsletter issue 50).
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