Asbestos giant tries to silence victims with £3m offer – story from The Sunday Times
A construction giant that produced toxic asbestos has tried to silence campaigners who asked for a donation towards life-saving cancer research.
French-owned Altrad, which had revenues of £4.5 billion last year and made a pre-tax profit of £546 million, had been in talks with campaigners representing patients suffering with cancer as a result of exposure to asbestos.
Paperwork uncovered after a court battle revealed that Cape, one of Britain’s biggest manufacturers of asbestos boards, which was acquired by Altrad, knew that exposure to dust from the boards caused cancer, but played down the risk for decades in order to protect profits. The boards were installed in hundreds of schools, cinemas, banks, churches and public buildings.
Asbestos is Britain’s biggest workplace killer, responsible for 5,000 deaths a year. The diseases caused by exposure to it — asbestosis and mesothelioma cancer — are incurable.
Campaigners claim that following talks Altrad offered less than a third of the £10 million needed and demanded in return that all legal claims and criticism of the firm stop. The offer was rejected.
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Whitston said he believed the firm had no sense of moral responsibility. He said: “I think they recognised that they have received a lot of bad publicity and it was embarrassing for them and I think they responded on that basis … I don’t think they accepted moral responsibility but they wanted to avoid any further press or media and campaigns.”
He added: “Altrad’s so-called substantial offer was not to accept the validity of the request for £10 million or to accept any moral responsibility for the harm that had been done but simply to prevent any further reputational damage and silence mesothelioma victims with an offer of less than a third requested.”
The firm had been invited to attend the meeting but did not attend. It has paid out more than £60 million in compensation to former employees who developed cancer as a result of exposure to asbestos and has set aside a further £70 million for future claims. It says it has paid 100 per cent of eligible claims and is the only company to have a compensation scheme. A spokesman said: “No other company in the UK has done this — most of them went insolvent, leaving uninsured victims without compensation.”
But in 1924, an article in the British Medical Journal raised concerns about the health of people exposed to asbestos. Then, 60 years ago, The Sunday Times revealed a conclusive link between the white dust caused by asbestos and a rise in lung cancer deaths. Documents only recently disclosed show that the firms that produced asbestos then spent decades trying to downplay the link, while privately acknowledging the risks.
It was not until the 1990s that it was banned in the UK, exposing tens of thousands of people. Cape was facing huge numbers of compensation claims when it was bought by Altrad in 2017.
In recent years there have been huge advances in the treatment of cancers caused by asbestos, but researchers say long-term funding is needed in order to pay for further advances.
• Drug breakthrough for asbestos-linked cancer treatment
Dr Robin Rudd, co-director of St Bartholomew’s mesothelioma research in London, described how secure funding would allow a core group of people to get together “so that the longer term projects can be undertaken, and they are not constantly scrabbling for enough money to keep going from year to year”. He added: “What would be achievable would be further incremental improvements in survival.” At present, survival rates are measured in months rather than years.
Campaigners from the AVSGF had asked for Altrad, which has paid millions of pounds to sponsor the French and New Zealand rugby union teams, for a £10 million donation towards scientific studies that could improve life-expectancy of patients.
In the public meeting in Westminster last week, it was claimed that Altrad had made an initial offer of £1.5 million to fund research, then a second offer of £2.4 million and then a final offer of £3 million to be paid over ten years.
And it demanded that the law firm Leigh Day, which has represented many victims, must not begin any legal process against Cape or involve the firm indirectly in any future legal activity. The deal would exclude claims made by those entitled to compensation under existing schemes.
It is understood that Altrad had made it clear that a £10 million donation was considered too high.
Before he died in October last year, Tony Dulwich told The Sunday Times of his anger that his incurable cancer was caused by “someone else’s greed”. Dulwich, who was 68, had been a carpenter and through his career was constantly exposed to white dust caused by asbestos boards — called Asbestolux — which he installed in schools, cinemas, banks and churches.
It is only many years after exposure to asbestos that most people develop cancer, making it hard to prove a link.
“The asbestos-makers were like drug dealers,” he said. “They brought out a product and sold it to you and your family. If I would have got cancer another way I could accept it, but to get it from someone else’s greed is a very hard pill to swallow.”
Harminder Bains, a partner with the legal firm Leigh Day who also represents the forum, said: “Cape continues to vigorously defend court cases brought against it by sufferers of mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases.”
She said it also tried to “bully victims out of compensation”, sometimes settling just days before trial, adding that the company had shown “no compassion” and set “impossible restrictions” for their donation. Bains said: “Cape knew that their products were lethal, but continued to put ‘profit before safety’. Cape should pay for the research.”
A spokesman for Altrad added: “Altrad has never mined, manufactured or sold asbestos or products containing asbestos, but continues to support Cape and the [compensation] scheme, recognising that such a scheme is the right thing to do. Altrad remains committed to ensuring the effectiveness of the Scheme on behalf of victims. Furthermore, Altrad is now a market leader in removing and clearing asbestos in some of the most challenging and hazardous industrial environments in the world.”