Cancer warning over asbestos in schools.

CHILDREN are at risk of dying from cancer in adulthood after being exposed to asbestos in schools, teachers warned yesterday.

More than 170 teachers have already died from mesothelioma, a fatal disease caused by asbestos, members of the NAS/UWT said.

Carole Hagedorn, a foreign languages teacher from Essex, was diagnosed with the disease last year after exposure to asbestos during more than 30 years of working in schools.

She told delegates at the NAS/UWT's annual conference in Bournemouth: "When, at the beginning of my career, I went into classrooms to teach Year Eights the perfect tense, I did not expect it to end with an industrial disease."

Following her diagnosis, Mrs Hagedorn has had to give up teaching, and endured 18 weeks of chemotherapy. The average life expectancy from diagnosis is between six and 18 months, she said.

"Children are thought to be much more susceptible than adults, though we won't know for another 20 to 30 years how many will already have contracted this cancer from exposure in schools because of its long latency period," she said.

Mrs Hagedorn, who received a standing ovation after telling her story, called for a national risk assessment of asbestos in schools.

Asbestos was routinely used in ceilings, wall linings and plumbing in thousands of schools built between the 1940s and 1970s..