A PETITION containing more than 22,000 signatures calling for creation of a specialist asbestos research centre was handed in to 10 Downing Street by a group led by a Sheffield surgeon.
John Edwards, Consultant Thoracic Surgeon at the Northern General Hospital, organised the petition.
The centre would manage research from around the UK to help find treatments and a cure for mesothelioma, a lung cancer caused by contact with asbestos, and other related diseases.
Incidence of the cancer is high in the South Yorkshire due to the asbestos used in the steel industry and the manufacture of railway carriages.
Mr Edwards was joined by representatives from asbestos victim support groups and the box containing the petition was handed over by Jan Eggerton, a mesothelioma sufferer.
Paula Walker, of Sheffield and Rotherham Asbestos Group, said: "Mesothelioma kills six people every day in the UK yet there is currently no government funding for research into asbestos-related diseases."
Mr Edwards said: "Mesothelioma is far and away the least-researched of the top 20 cancers in the UK. Funding for a UK National Centre for Asbestos Related Diseases is a priority."
Around 2,000 people are newly diagnosed with mesothelioma each year but the figure is rising.
All types of asbestos have been banned in the UK since 1999, but it can take up to 40 years for the cancer to develop, so many people who were in contact with it in the 1970s and 1980s are developing mesothelioma now.
source: www.thestar.co.uk
