Night Shifts Cause for Cancer, Says UN Study
The Danish Government is now considering nightshift working as an industrial injury if women later on develop breast cancer. It has been reported that at least 40 women have been paid damages as it could not be determined if there was any other cause that would have increased the risk of cancer.
Eversheds, an international law firm has alerted employers to consider the risks that employees’ health is exposed to by working in the night shift. If they do not do so, they could be regretting it later when they are faced with lawsuits from their employees.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer carried out a research funded by the UN that led them to deduce that doing night shifts increases breast cancer risk. The study also concluded that nurses and air hostesses who have been working these shifts for over a period of 30 years are more likely to get the cancer.
The UK government has not yet shown any signs of following in the footsteps of its Danish counterpart. But the Head of Personal Injury at Eversheds, Brendan Padfield has urged employers to sit up and take notice of the dangers.
He said that although the Health and Safety Executive will only be able to conclude its ongoing research on the matter by 2011 and no guidelines from them have been issued, it does not mean that the risks do not exist. He added that employers cannot hide behind this fact because an EU government has already been reimbursing these claims. IOSH courses are designed to give managers and supervisors all they need to know to help handle health and safety in their teams; click on IOSH Training for more information.
Employers who have considered the risks would be safer than those who have not. Also, since like asbestos-related diseases, cancer takes time, it would be a good number of years before the employers and their workers would realize what happened.
