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Campaigners issue gas safety call
Gas safety campaigners have been urged to step up their fight at the launch of a week's events aimed at alerting the public to the dangers of carbon monoxide. Gas safety campaigners have been urged to step up their fight at the launch of a week's events aimed at alerting the public to the dangers of carbon monoxide.
And they also demanded a probe into whether other toxins emitted by faulty equipment such as gas heaters could be causing long-term illnesses.
Victims joined politicians and other supporters in the House of Lords to mark the start of the second annual CO-Awareness Week.
Labour MP Barry Sheerman told them: "We've got to start telling the industry we're fed up with being the nice guys. For 45% of the country still to be unaware of the dangers is a disgrace."
The gas industry should be forced to show what they spent on public education and warnings as a proportion of their annual profits, he suggested.
And mortgage providers and airports should supply carbon monoxide alarms as a matter of course to homebuyers and those travelling to foreign holiday resorts.
At least 50 people die each year and many thousands report long-term health effects - with several victims claiming their conditions had been dismissed by doctors.
CO-Awareness is using this year's campaign to warn carbon monoxide may just be "the tip of a great big toxic iceberg" with other substances adding to long-term health issues.
President Lynn Griffiths, whose own children were poisoned, said: "CO-Awareness is becoming increasingly alarmed at the growing number of victims who are going on to develop similar, if not identical, illnesses that we are told are not connected to carbon monoxide poisoning.
"We strongly suspect that other toxic substances are released during the leakage of combustion products and that it is these toxins that are responsible for the long-term health issues from which so many victims are suffering. We are calling on Government, industry and medical experts to investigate this possibility as a matter of the utmost urgency."
Sent: 17/10/2007
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