"A conference of workplace dust experts in Nottingham this September is attracting unexpected controversy after its scientific chair was linked to an asbestos ‘crime fraud' by a US court. Good, impartial science can help save lives, by identifying life-threatening exposures at work and identifying measures – controls, safer standards, bans on the deadliest substances - to remedy them. Asbestos would be a case in point. For those for whom the science came too late, the ones forming part of the body count, it can mean at least some compensation for a life cut short."

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