Crude Dangers To Oil Refinery Workers Of Asbestos Exposure

Sept. 28, 2011 - PRLog -- Climate change, C02 emissions, fossil fuels, oil production - the big issues shaping people’s lives in the twenty first century. Less well known is that a big twentieth century issue was imperceptibly linked to the process of refining crude oil into petrol and other oil based products. Asbestos and the deadly asbestos-related disease, mesothelioma.

Recent research has discovered significantly higher rates of mesothelioma or asbestosis disease in over 45,000 UK oil refinery workers who were employed in the industry for more than 12 months from the end of World War Two to the early 1970s. Further studies have shown a 96 -100 per cent connection between mesothelioma and workplace related asbestos exposure among oil refinery maintenance workers. It is now well documented that asbestos material was widely used throughout UK engineering, manufacturing and construction industries as an inexpensive insulating and fire retardant material.

In oil refineries built before the mid-1970s, heat-resistant asbestos or Asbestos Containing Materials (ACM) was a traditional insulation material used throughout the industry and can still be found surrounding pipes, conduits and distillation columns, and in various gaskets and other machinery parts, as well covering floors, walls and work surfaces.  In addition, many oil refinery workers would wear the obligatory protective clothing, such as hoods and gloves, which were made of a material containing asbestos material.

The involvement of dozens of different personnel on the refinery site meant almost certain exposure to asbestos by construction workers, pipefitters, boilermakers, millwrights, welders, electricians and various system operators. Over the years, the very real possibility is that they could have disturbed aging asbestos, likely to be in a highly friable, i.e. fragile condition and breathed in the deadly asbestos fibre dust. Once ingested, the fibres imbed themselves permanently into the linings of the lungs, or other vital organs, eventually causing cellular disease.

Unfortunately, minimal asbestos awareness and often, industry refusal to recognise the deadly health risks, ultimately, led to untold thousands of workers to contracting asbestos-related disease, including the incurable, malignant cancer, mesothelioma. Prognosis at a very late stage of the spread of the disease - even after asbestosis treatments of radiation or surgery – would be little more than 12 to 18 months. The time limit for making a mesothelioma claim against a former employer is three years.

The aftermath, over half a century later, is still very much with us as a long latency period meant that first mesothelioma or asbestosis symptoms would only emerge some 15 to 50 years after initial exposure. The total number of mesothelioma deaths between 1968 and 2007 was over 32,000. Asbestos-related disease accounted for 2,500 deaths in 2009 alone and at present, some 4,000 deaths are recorded each year with future mortality rates predicted to hit 59,000 by 2050.

Visit http://www.asbestosvictimadvice.com for more information and advice.

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