Yes, and it was big business which made its profits out of workers like these. No question, however, of sharing these same profits with those whose health was damaged in the process. It would not be so bad if we had an economic system, neither capitalist nor communist, but cooperative, where the profits were shared fairly with all who helped to make them.

William of Liberton - you da man - at last someong who can articulate the very escence of a logical social-economic model - one well worth adopting. Hat's off to you, Sir William.

Now, lets work on the 'Liberton' .... time for a change .... no need to be reminded about the leper colony, there.

Injustices come in many shapes and Sizes, High time we all stood together.
Nearly every day now our Press are carrying stories of injustices.
Iain McKie's kletter yesterday Highlighted the Lockerbie and the need to keep the presure up see it here.
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/letters.cfm?id=1655982007
Lets all stick together and get Some Justice.
I feel there is maybe a need for a massive Rally in Scotland to highlight the many Injustices.

for more visit here:

http://shirleymckie.myfastforum.org/forum1.php&sid=79...

Don't you just love how the Law thinks it knows better than Medicine and has more of an effect than the illness seems to?

As for the insurance companies, I'm disgusted with them. They take your money and then do their level best not to live up to the promises they made to you when they were courting you for your cash!

This is a terrible injustice on the sufferers of asbestos poisoning!

About time we got rid of this bunch of auld people.

Put them all in council run care home for...as long as it takes.

However, their longstanding right to compensation was subject to an appeal by insurance companies, with the Court of Appeal finding in the companies' favour last year that pleural plaques was not a disease.

-----------------------------------------------------

Sounds just like the American Insurance companies and the American tobacco companies.

All a bunch of legalized crooks. Care not a jot for workers who made the profits for them.

1. William of Liberton /

Hey Dude your's is a great idea ,

But where does the startup money come from dude.

It takes millions even billions in start up costs for a manufacturing process to get off the ground.

ITS ALL ABOUT MONEY

HE DE MAN
HE DE MAN

NO NO

U DE MAN

LIBERTON DE MAN

GC

What the hell is the HOUSE of LORDS?

Is there a HOUSE OF LADIES ?

There is in Germany
they are called the YELLOW HOUSES

GC

So five upper class twits in wigs,who have never done a days hard graft in their live's decide to take the bread out of the mouths of the suffering and needy.

The sooner we cut all ties with our colonial masters the better.

What a splendid bunch of uninformed prior postings. The whole point about this ruling is that the claimants bringing the actions had asymptomatic pleural plaques - i.e. there was no physical sensation caused by the cellular changes to the pleura at all, so that, had it not been for x-rays showing the presence of the plaques, the so-called 'victims' would have had no knowledge that their pleural membrames were any different to anyone else's. The judges of the House of Lords make the simple point that such asymptomatic cellular change, which raises no specific risk of any actual injury, simply doesn't constitute an injury. Perfect good sense.

Not that any of this perfect good sense matters to those who like to attack the judiciary because they are "upper class twits in wigs". Much better just to comment by reference to uninformed, stereotypical prejudice, as it makes you feel oh so much better afterwards.

P.S. Lest it be thought that I was being unfair in my prior posting by saying the claimants had asymptomatic pleural plaques, that was exactly the evidence relating to the specific claimants who brought the conjoined action. The medical evidence before the courts was that, while in 1% of pleural plaque cases there can be some respiratory discomfort, none of the claimants in these actions had any such discomfort. Moreover, the Scotsman report saying that pleural plaques "can be accompanied by the development of serious respiratory diseases including mesothelioma and lung cancer" misses the point that the MEDICAL evidence before the court was that, even if mesothelioma or asbestosis occurs in some cases, it has no causal connection to the presence of the pleural plaques, i.e. many people with pleural plaques never go on to suffer such consditions, and for those that do the condition is not caused by the pleural plaques.

Tory Heaven, you appear to be remarkably well informed on the subject.

Can you tell me how much money the insurance companies stand to save as a result of this ruling?

Less their fee to you, of course, Tory Heaven!

And regardless of the medical definitions, it appears even from your commentary, that, as a consequence of their work for the capitalists, organs in these workers' bodies became to some extent malformed. That seems like an injury to me, but not one the insurance companies would want to recognise, of course.

Tory |Heaven. Its all about fairness and the lack of in this case. Does it seem fair to you that an ex-police woman who suffered a damaged thumb should recieve HUGE settlement and people with debilitating illnesses, brought on by working in unsafe conditions should not?
Think again my right wing friend.

What a lot of drivel!! The whole point of the Lords' decision is not about grinding down the hard-done- by poverty stricken dying workers but that the condition is a non-debilitating scar which causes zero disability.
If more people realised this perhaps there wouldn't be such a lot of anti-capitalist clap-trap spouted by all the red McRobbos.

#12
"Does it seem fair to you that an ex-police woman who suffered a damaged thumb should recieve HUGE settlement and people with debilitating illnesses, brought on by working in unsafe conditions should not?"
Of course what you describe is not fair but that's not the point, is it, dumbo?
The people in this court case are not suffering from debilitating illnesses, They're not suffering from any illnesses at all.
If and when they contract mesothelioma from working with asbestos they can claim compensation. At the moment they are as fit and healthy as I am. Pleural plaques are no more a debilitating illness than a hangover is a brain tumour.
Get real!

Cheer up, China is one of the Worlds leading exporters of asbestos products used extensively in the Middle East and developing countries. Then as they migrate here, we can take care of them as well.

I have 'numerous paques' on both lungs, caused by asbestos exposure including crocidolite! I was 'donated' this potential death sentence by the NSW govt between 1976-89.
I was a fork and 120 ton overhead crane driver. They denied there was any there for many years. Abut six to ten work mates have since died of it....some uncompensated. Plaques were never claimable in Oz, and now the UK has done the same. It is a total disgrace, and the House of Hypoctites Who Only Breathe Fresh Air, not the farts or beer breath of those whose endeavours, in part, made them as rich as they are, sit and gloat in their peurile acquiescence to corporate greed.
It is shameful beyond belief, and if Brown stood for anything, he would have stopped this travesty happening.
I plan for the future not knowing how long, at 58, it might be. My Mum is 91, Dad just died a month ago at same age.There is NO chance I will do that !
It killed my Uncle Ken Mackie i 1984....same Government employer, same old result...paltry widow's pension for Aunty.
It was KNOWN to be dangerous when introduced and the then Health Minister of NSW, in 1956 IMPLORED the govt NOT to use it. They did, to my, and so many others, eternal (;iterally!) regret.
You get past anger...until you read it all again.
My heartfelt sympathies for those who have the timebomb plaques, and their loved ones.
My contempt and a spittoon for the 'Luds' ! ....
Is 'The House of Total Duds' a better title?
Sooner they are gone the better. My lot in Scotland originally lived in a street in Macduff now called Low Shore, (from about 1950odd).
Back then, it was called 'The Howe Of Misery' !
If there is a revolution one day, who could say it was unjustified?
Scotland is my favourite place....so bless you all and good fortune. and good riddance hopefully one day soon, to this sort ofpetty minded, beaurocratic BULL!

. Tory Heaven,
I watched my father die from this condition.
You Sir are a baw bag.
I challege you to disclose you identity here and now ,otherwise I hold you beneath comtempt.

16. Disgusted Aussie,
Here is my hand ,here is my heart. good luck Sir

Thank you, Sgt Murdoch.
Yeah, and as for you, Tory Scumbag....feck off!
Why???? Easy as, peanut brain:
my Uncle Ken Mackie of Collaroy Sydney, NSW Australia did in actual fact DIE of that condition in 1984 in the most cruel way imaginable. He suffered for years first but, and as for fact, moron....try this on 'mr Medical evidence' :
The Dust Diseases board of NSW even acknowledges that MANY cases start with plaques and advance later on, sometimes as much as 20 years, to full blown cancer, asbestosois, etc etc.
Ever heard of Kumar & Clarke, mate? its the GP's bible written right here in good old Pommie land of your masters (worse luck for all concerned, I'd say)
It explains in terms you'd understand what is what. Just read it first, eh? der!!!!!!!!!!
You, Mr Tory Trogdolite, know sod all about what you write...that is obvious to me as a sufferer.
How dare you misinform and mislead the good scots public....many thousands of whom would have contracted asbestosis etc working on the shipyards and other enterprises that galahs like you now live on the prfits from!
NO? How do you think scotland became richer after tobacco cotton etc etc? they just built the yards as a momen to nowt, did they?
did it get richer then, by Tory donation of manna from Tory Heaven???
Just crawl back in the hole you crawled out of and be quiet ya goose!
(and see Tory Heaven , self revelation is not that hard...except for the cowardly !)
My name is Mackie.....got it? so? like I care if an ill-informed over opinionated goose like you knows that? I'm so scared I'm gonna wet meself.
grow up or shut up.

oh...Sarge M.......got a tad annoyed with ya mate too.hard work people like that, eh??
I think the whole of the 'allegedly' 'United Kingdom' of former bitter, and now somewhat more civil, enemies should do the following safety measures:

1.dig a trench somewhere just above the M25..say Northampton...due East and West. FILL it with pirahna and sharks...Oz wiil donate....surfeit of latter already.
Those of, shall we say, somewhat dubious alliance during 1914-18 and thru till 1939-45 and SINCE, predominantly living in VERY poash Houses and speaking the Queen of Hanover's version of English, could be ferried over to the south of the trench...permanently. For £10 ONE WAY...nice historical irony there.
To have no further right to influence, comment upon, patronise, use as cheap labour, and / or make very pathetic unfunny jokes about,
their northern neighbours.
To Get well and truly.......well, lost... in other words. And, preferably to their TRUE ancestral home, if ya ken ma meaning !!! (drifting south in accent rapidly...to...) 'no wut I mene, like U DOOOO no wot I mene, yeh but no but yeh but?" or:
"Oi'm frum Lundun un Oi think them Scots saaarrrnd funny, whereas Oi doe..an't at all, mate".
(But they do don't they? THAT garble...is English as it should be spoken? sure. Pigs arse it is.

2. then restore old Scots border from Carlisle to Newcastle....electrify the wall, and leave the incumbent Scots at NOW at Westminster where their hearts so obviously are , rather than Scotland.

Assuming they've retracted themselves from Big Tony's derriere by now, they can all climb into someone else's and get in a useless huddle as always. Sarge, can you think of a 'candidate derriere' for their future warmth during the coming winter of malcontent? Gosh...Hard one eh?

3. Referendum time: if not truly behind Scotland, then FECK off and live some other place ! NOOOOW.

4. next time they want to steal a

*14 Yada. I sugest you read the posts from Disgusted Ausie and PC Murdoch before anymore derogatery comments. The problems are that this debilitating condition has an unknown future for the recipients and should not be dismissed.
Disgusted Ausie. Best of luck to you
PC Murdoch. And to you
Yada. the only dumbo apart from you on this thread is Tory boy. If you have nothing of note to add to the discussion then dont bother, idiot.

Yes Yada (Yoda?).....and when the 'little black spots on the lungs' become active. the majority are dead in 6 months or so. My son' s neighbour, Alan N......, caol miner, but former brief stint as asbestos worker in factoy producing it, weighed in at 16 stone...all muscle fit as a mallee bull....is flared up and he weighed about 8 strone when they buried him. He had about 6 months.....4 of which he was desparately ill for. 2 months left to enjoy the compo
before death....that is Yada's and Tory Heaven's and the House Of Duds' idea of justice. Good, well you lot can pick up your pensions 2 mths prior to YOUR demise, too then, eh? Talk about thick as a brick. Nothing like bigots to stop listening is there?
Makes ya blood boil...its just so IGNORANT !

Two of the judges were Scottish. Plaques do not develop into real diseases. Plaques have no symptoms. They are only found if you go to a scan van to see if you can make a claim, or if you're being investigated for anther chest condition - usually COPD from smoking too much. Those with plaques are not ill - but they want compensation.

Ask how much money the sponsor of the bill makes from pursuing the claims and why he has 90% of the pursuer market.

Mr Lightbody....that is missing the point as previous posts have pointed out. NON smokers die of this too....4 of my former work mates, now deceased from asbestosis, which started off as Pleural thickening, then plaques, then an active spot, then death, never smoked in their lives!!!!
You sir, are totally wrong. I have been sent for regular CT and x-rays here in the UK as a precautionary measure by M'cr's BEST chest consultants. They don't waste time or money on unnecessary investigations, precautionary or not. For me, there is no possible claim here...it happened in OZ. So my mtivation is NOT and cannot be, financial. Yet they still send me for these check ups. So you think that's a stupid waste of tiem, then do you? Well, write to the Health Minister and let him know your erstwhile font of medical facts.
No problems....but that doesn't mean I'm not entitled to stay alive as long as possible does it? Or is that a bother to the likes of you?
And the situation here is now as it ALWAYS was in Oz, no claim until plaques become active. That is when death is sure to follow in 6-9 months, tops. THAT is what people are CORRECTLY whingeing about.
And you are out of order, wrong factually etc.
Whether the judges came from England, Scotand, Jupiter or Mars makes not a jot of difference.
As far as Tories go, well Edinburgh's got its share, alright. More's the pity. If I do croak it after having moved to Scotland, which is my intent at some stage, you wanna tell my family what you've prattled on about on here? I'd stick me head up outta the box to see that one !