Armley asbestos disaster
On 20 July 1982, Yorkshire Television broadcast the documentary "Alice - A Fight For Life", predominantly the story of Alice Jefferson, who had worked at the Acre Mill asbestos factory in Hebden Bridge for just nine months when she was 17 years old. Thirty years later she was diagnosed with mesothelioma and given only six months to live. The documentary was also an "exposé on the workings of the asbestos industry." Its broadcast resulted in £60 million being knocked off T&N's share price overnight, headlines in the national newspapers, and the setting up of a government enquiry. Within ten days the government had halved the legal limit for asbestos dust in the workplace. In 1988 Yorkshire Television picked up the "Yorkshire Evening Post" story and produced a second critical investigation focusing on the pattern of deaths in Armley, and contradicting the government's reasons for refusing an inquiry. Called "Too Close to Home", it was broadcast as part of the "First Tuesday" documentary series on 6 December 1988.
Australian Blue Asbestos
The company was purchased from CSR Limited by James Hardie Industries Ltd and has now moved to the Netherlands in an apparent attempt to divorce itself from the asbestos crisis. Worker's compensation claims for previous workers, wives and offspring of residents of Wittenoom continue to be a big issue for company, which has not moved any further on the compensation case. The present number of known victims is around 2000. Since 1995, a disturbing trend has surfaced: many new cases of wives and children of workers from Wittenoom have been diagnosed with mesothelioma, possibly from washing dust-laden clothes of mine workers, while the children who used to play in the mine tailings that were spread over the streets at Wittenoom, have also been affected.