ABSTRACT
The word disaster is not usually associated with occupational health problems but in some cases it seems quite appropriate. Diseases caused by carcinogenic and toxic substances are silent and slow, unnoticed at first, harming or killing in ones or twos but taking their toll of scores of thousands over the decades. While the list of chemicals that can do harm to humans is practically endless, we need to be able to work with them safely to gain the benefits they also bring. Like asbestos, the period of latency between exposure to a carcinogen and first showing symptoms can be very long and, by the time a diagnosis has been made, it is often too late to effect a cure. But research can help a looming problem from becoming a major disaster. This chapter describes the facts, what happened and why, and what happened next, concluding with a short summary of lessons to be learned.
