Along vertical pipe sits against white-painted brickwork in the corner of a cramped storeroom. Two men wearing orange boiler suits and gloves crouch at its base. One uses a scraper to remove lumps of what looks like wet papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 from the outside of the pipe, into a red bag held by the other.<\/p>\n
Both men are breathing through facemasks, their air sucked from outside the isolation unit: a short, makeshift corridor constructed from black plastic panels and transparent polythene sheeting. An extractor fan hums relentlessly.<\/p>\n
It might look like a scene from a horror movie in which scientists fight to contain a virus, but the truth is more banal \u2013 though no less deadly. The two men are removing asbestos insulation from a heating pipe in a west London hospital.<\/p>\n
Ordinarily there would be bright yellow tape with the words \u201cWARNING asbestos\u201d on it, the site supervisor tells me. But this is an especially sensitive job. The neighbouring ward\u2019s beds are filled by patients with acute respiratory conditions, and the hospital\u2019s management decided that advertising the true nature of the work might cause alarm.<\/p>\n
Thirteen people a day in the UK die from exposure to asbestos \u2013 more than double the number that die on the roads. In the USA, asbestos will be responsible for around 10,000 deaths this year, meaning it kills close to as many people as gun crime or skin cancer.<\/p>\n
Health fears associated with asbestos were first raised at the end of the 19th century. Asbestosis, an inflammatory condition affecting the lungs that causes shortness of breath, coughing and other lung damage, was described in medical literature in the 1920s. By the mid-1950s, when the first epidemiological study of asbestos-related lung cancer was published, the link to fatal disease was well established.<\/p>\n
Yet in 2012, rather than falling, worldwide asbestos production increased and international exports surged by 20 per cent. A full ban did not come into force in the UK until 1999, and the European Union\u2019s deadline for member states to end its use was just nine years ago. Today, asbestos is still used in large quantities in many parts of Asia, eastern Europe and South America, while even in the USA and Canada, controlled use is allowed.<\/p>\n