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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Haroon Siddique Legal affairs correspondent

UK asbestos maker withheld information on material’s risks, court papers show

Asbestos warning
All types of asbestos have been banned in the UK since 1999. Photograph: David Gee/Alamy

One of the UK’s biggest manufacturers of asbestos and the industry bodies that it co-founded historically withheld information on risks posed by the carcinogenic material, playing down the dangers while lobbying the government for product warnings to be tempered, according to documents released after a lengthy court battle.

A lawyer who acted for the Asbestos Victims Support Groups Forum UK in its fight to obtain the documents about Cape compared its behaviour to the tobacco industry’s former refusal to admit evidence of harms from smoking while its own research showed the opposite.

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