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Asbestos Victims Fight For Research Funding

Members of the Merseyside Asbestos Victims Support Group will be demonstrating outside the offices of Cape plc, now ALTRAD, on Monday 17th July at 1.00pm to demand the company donate £10 million towards research into finding better treatment and a cure for mesothelioma.

Mesothelioma is a terminal cancer of the lining of the lung caused by asbestos however can present in the lining of the abdomen or heart.

Cape Asbestos was founded in 1893.  During the 1950’s, 60’s and later, it was a major player making asbestos products and employing insulation workers fitting asbestos lagging.

Cape were taken over by ALTRAD in 2017, a multibillion-pound global company. One arm of their business now involves removing asbestos materials from buildings, as asbestos was banned in 1999. Many of the asbestos materials they are now removing from buildings will have originally been installed by their company. Therefore, this company is being allowed to make substantial profits in both processes.

The demonstration will include a mock trial of the case the company lost at the Supreme Court in 2019 in its battle to destroy its records showing its product was a danger to human life. The case was taken to court blocking the destruction of the company's records by the Asbestos Victims Support Group Forum UK, our groups national umbrella organisation.

John Flanagan, Information Officer for MAVSG said:

“Cape have a moral responsibility to donate a fraction of the profits the company made in past decades for its shareholders and senior company management  and continue to make from its asbestos stripping division today”

he added:

“It’s an affront to common decency that the company stands idly by and watches while their previous employees and those who worked naively with their very profitable killer dust, despite their knowledge that their products had  caused pain, misery and death” 

Source: MAVSG press release.

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