From RICHARD DOLL
It would be unfair to the Health and Safety Commission, the asbestos
company whose employees’ health my colleagues and I have been keeping under
review since 1954, and the employees themselves to allow a statement of
Alan Dalton (Letters, 16 January) to stand uncorrected: ‘In 1982, following
the (TV) film Alice – a fight for life, which revealed the real hazards
of asbestos, the workers at the factory invited him (that is, me) to meet
them in person. A few words from them revealed that the company’s application
of the 1931 regulations had not been effective in protecting them’.
The inadequacy of the 1931 regulations had, in fact, long been known.
My colleagues and I had reported in 1977 that: a hazard of lung cancer had
persisted in men first employed since these regulations had been put into
effect; the company had further reduced exposure substantially in the 1950s;
and stricter levels for permissible exposure had been introduced and applied.
The meeting that I attended in 1982 was arranged primarily at the employees’
request because of their concern about the distortion of the facts presented
in the TV film and nothing that was said at the meeting revealed any new
evidence beyond that which the company had already provided.
Richard Doll Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford.
