‘If I was exposed to asbestos, children were too,’ says ex-teaching assistant with lung cancer

A former teaching assistant who developed a deadly cancer after suspected asbestos exposure has urged the government to make sure the toxic material is removed from schools.

In 2020, Wendy Gregory, 68, was diagnosed with mesothelioma, an incurable cancer [usually linked to asbestos exposure,](https://inews.co.uk/news/health/living-lung-cancer-prognosis-live-well-2112845?ico=in-line_link) and given a year to live.

She had been a volunteer and teaching assistant in Faversham, Kent in the 1980s and 90s, where her lawyers alleged the cancer was caused by asbestos exposure in a primary school.

Although the council didn’t accept liability, asbestos-based panels behind a heater in a mobile classroom where she’d worked were found and a legal case was settled out of court.

Ms Gregory described it as “absolutely devastating” that asbestos, which [has been blamed for the deaths of hundreds of school workers](https://inews.co.uk/news/predicted-deaths-asbestos-uk-crumbling-schools-3084818?ico=in-line_link), continued to be present in schools and called on the next government to act.

“I was exposed at some point by something in that school and surrounded by children, which means that they must be exposed as well,” she told **i.**

“Morally, I don’t understand how things can be left as they are.

“There ought to be a planned approach to removing the asbestos. For there to even be one chance of someone breathing in the dust is bad enough.”

Asbestos is the biggest cause of work-related deaths in the UK, according to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), with around [5,000 UK workers a year dying from asbestos-related](https://inews.co.uk/news/exposure-husband-died-exposure-still-in-schools-teachers-warned-1614059?ico=in-line_link) diseases including mesothelioma.

It was banned in construction in 1999 but had been used extensively in England from the 1950s to the mid-80s.

In February 2017, the Department for Education published a report that found 83 per cent of English state schools reported [asbestos was present in their buildings.](https://inews.co.uk/news/education/pupils-hosed-amid-asbestos-exposure-fears-52588?ico=in-line_link)

Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows 371 teaching and education professionals died from mesothelioma from 2010 to 2020.

But others put the death toll higher and point to the potential risk to schoolchildren too, with symptoms of mesothelioma sometimes taking 15 to 45 years to appear.

The [Joint Union Asbestos Committee (JUAC)](https://norac.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Continuing-Government-Failure-leads-to-rise-in-school-mesothelioma-deaths-JUAC-REPORT-02-07-2021-FINAL.pdf), representing teaching unions, estimates that from 1980 to 2017 between 5,000 and 10,000 school pupils and staff died from mesothelioma due to asbestos exposure in their former schools in the 1960s-80s.

Charities, unions and campaigners have warned that up to 150 school workers and pupils are at risk of death or fatal exposure from asbestos each year unless the government removes the toxic material.

Hmm, this is a tricky one.

Asbestos is very hard to “make dangerous” as it were. You need to be disturbing it and creating dust for it to cause serious problems and even then it’s only specific types. A lot of the fear around asbestos is the “better safe than sorry” legislation around it and the fear that has resulted from it. Asbestos panels undisturbed and behind a heater are unlikely to have caused this.

I’d be interested to know if she smoked too. Had an uncle who died of the exact same cancer. Was actually ripping off asbestos lagging in factories in the 70s (so pretty much zero health and safety equipment) but also smoked for 50 years.