Scottish Labour MP died from Navy asbestos cancer

This video from the USA is called Libby, Montana: An Asbestos Legacy.

From British daily The Independent:

MP whose death sparked poll was suing the MoD

Embarrassment for Brown as Glenrothes’s late incumbent was denied compensation for the ‘asbestos‘ cancer that killed him

By Brian Brady, Whitehall Editor

Sunday, 24 August 2008

The Labour MP whose death forced the latest by-election to threaten Gordon Brown‘s premiership was suing the Government over its refusal to pay compensation for the illness that killed him.

John MacDougall, the former MP for Glenrothes, launched a court action against the Ministry of Defence (MoD) last November after the Government turned down his request for a £300,000 payout. Mr MacDougall believed his lung cancer was contracted as a result of working at the Royal Naval dockyards in Rosyth in the 1960s and 1970s when he was exposed to asbestos.

The disclosure that Mr Brown’s government blocked the payment will be acutely embarrassing for the Prime Minister, who paid tribute to Mr MacDougall at his funeral last week. Mr Brown described the illness as the “cruel legacy” of Mr MacDougall’s exposure to asbestos in the dockyards during his youth.

Yesterday, the Scottish National Party (SNP) selected its candidate for the by-election at Glenrothes, bordering Mr Brown‘s own constituency. …

Mr Brown is expected to call the by-election in the second week of September, despite fears of another reverse at the hands of the SNP, to prevent defeat damaging his hopes of an autumn relaunch. …

John Park, a member of the Scottish Parliament and a long-term Brown ally, and Mark Hood, the local councillor, are believed to be in the running for the Glenrothes seat. But the I[ndependent] o[n] S[unday] understands that John McTernan, a former aide to Tony Blair who is now working for the Secretary of State for Scotland, Des Browne, is also considering entering the race.

Mr McTernan would be a controversial candidate, as he ran Labour’s unsuccessful Scottish parliamentary election campaign last year, and was quizzed by police over “cash-for-honours” allegations.

Social class dictates cancer risk: here.

Britain: Construction union UCATT has accused the government of being involved in “skulduggery” which would deny compensation to thousands of victims of an asbestosis-related industrial disease: here.

Canadian Government defends export of asbestos to poorer nations: here. And here.

ASBESTOS campaigners celebrated on Monday after an Australian woman who died of mesothelioma was posthumously awarded 550,000 Australian dollars (£270,000) in compensation based on her claim that 20 years of washing asbestos-laden clothes had given her the cancer: here.

Australia: James Hardie court ruling another affront to asbestosis victims: here.

Britain: The government faces accusations that it was adding to the suffering of pleural plaques sufferers by delaying compensation to avoid paying out hundreds of millions of pounds: here.