A new report from Professor Andrew Watterson and Professor Rory O’Neill on the unjust state compensation schemes which means occupational diseases including breast cancer linked to shiftwork will never overcome an arbitrary double-the-risk qualification hurdle and call for reform of this ailing system.

How did this system get so unfair? Women almost miss out entirely. Breast cancer is the top occupational cancer for women directly linked to shift work yet it isn’t on the state prescribed disease list. Each year, according to HSE, around 2,000 women develop breast cancer as result of working shifts. Not one is compensated.The ACP and the Hazards Campaign drew attention to this ignoring of women’s breast cancer in particular when it staged a demo out a HSE meeting. We also maligned the HSE for making occupational breast cancer a much neglected gender issue.

The report makes the case for occupational cancer and exposes the fact that the UK is backwards on prevention and recognition of real-life, flesh and blood cases.

Read the report here.

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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.