[Late industrial damage: closed access for obtaining compensation?].
Working site related health risks, in particular cancer as a model of industrial latency diseases, belong to the extensively studied "environmental diseases". As much as 14 classes of chemical substances causing cancer at different localization are classified in the occupational disease compensation law of the Federal Republic of Germany. Within the recent decades the number of carcinogens identified by experimental cancer research has been enormously increasing, whereas new data in occupational oncology stagnate. In particular, the disagreement in the "social partnership" regarding the originator principle with the consequence of the liability of employers to compensate occupational diseases can be considered as the socio-political background of this stagnation. Especially investigations on cancer related to the working site often fail due to data privacy. With regard to this problem, some actual cases are listed. The mandate of medical science to gain new knowledge in the field of work related diseases for a legal assessment, as determined in the RVO section 551, chapter 1 and 2, should be refused until a new balance of protective measures in occupational medicine and data privacy will be established.
Woitowitz
H J
HJ
D004781:Environmental Exposure; D005860:Germany, West; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology*; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000209:etiology*; D012307:Risk Factors; D013997:Time Factors; D014942:Workers' Compensation / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*
Industrielle Latenzschäden: Verschlossene Wege der Erkenntnisgewinnung?