Each year thousands of workers are killed, maimed, or injured at work. Many live with a lifetime of illness, disease and pain caused by the work they do, or where and how they work or the things present in their workplaces which are harmful to their health. Daily, cumulative and combined exposures to substances, chemicals or processes can affect the health of those working  directly or indirectly with them.

Exposures to carcinogens, mutagens or teratogens in the workplace can lead to cancers later in life, even if the exposure is prebirth. Official conservative estimates that cancers caused by the jobs we do kill one person in the UK every 30 minutes around the clock. Isn’t it time you remember the dead and fight like hell for the living?

For more information on events near you check out the Hazards WMD site.

To test your MP’s knowledge of the issue try the GM Hazards Campaign Quiz.

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Published by wildcardenvironmentalist

Helen Lynn has worked on issues linking women, gender, health and the environment since 1995, initially at the Women’s Environmental Network where she was health co-ordinator for 12 years, then as a freelance consultant. She has worked internationally and at EU level with Women in Europe for a Common Future and is on their International Advisory Board. Her campaign work began with Putting Breast Cancer on the Map, which encouraged women to map local sources of pollution alongside incidence of breast cancer and she was one of the founders of the No More Breast Cancer Campaign. She is on the Soil Associations Health Products Standards Committee which develops and keeps under review standards for organic health and beauty care products. While at WEN she and the health team initiated the Getting Lippy campaign on harmful ingredients in cosmetics, the campaign covered all aspects of the issue including information on toxic ingredients, making your own cosmetics, misleading labelling and advertising of the products and which alternatives are available. Other campaigns Helen worked on included the Ban Lindane (a toxic pesticide used on crops) Campaign, Healthy Flooring, Enviromenstrual, and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. She currently facilitates the Alliance for Cancer Prevention which works with occupational and environmental health specialists and activists to challenge the existing emphasis on control and treatment of cancer as the only way forward and to get equal recognition for primary prevention, particularly in relation to environmental and occupational risk factors. In 2014 along with fellow breast cancer activists she began the From Pink to Prevention campaign which aims to move the agenda towards Stopping Breast Cancer before it Starts.