UNIONREPS.org.uk

The TUC has launched a new web service, specially developed for union representatives and stewards. This new site will help reps from different workplaces and different unions, to network online and learn from each other’s experiences. The site also provides news, information and resources to help reps to do their jobs, as well as a fortnightly e-newsletter.

Food flavour wrecks lungs

Food flavouring wrecked my lungs
US foodworkers have been disabled by “popcorn lung”, a potentially fatal condition caused by a common food flavouring. For 10 years this seemed to be just a US problem. Then came Yorkshire factory worker Martin Muir, 38, who tests revealed has the lungs of an 80-year-old man.

When agency worker Martin Muir (right) was offered a full-time job by flavourings firm Firmenich in 2003, he thought he was lucky. “It was alright. I could see I could get further up if I put my head down and got on,” he recalled.

Within three years, exposure to an artificial butter flavouring used in thousands of products including frozen dinners, baked goods, home baking products, crisps, snacks, sweets, butter substitutes, sprays and oils and other processed foods, had cost the father of four his marriage, his health and his job. “When you do lung function tests it gives you a lung age. I come out about 80 years old,” Martin said. “If I run upstairs, I’m out of breath. I was fit as a butcher’s dog before, I’ve always been healthy. They reckon I’ve lost 25-30 per cent of my lung capacity. It doesn’t sound like a lot but when you try do anything you realise it is.”

In December 2005, the firm, based in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, referred him to a chest physician, who confirmed he had bronchiolitis obliterans, a normally rare but sometimes life-threatening condition. The work link was only spotted at all because he was by chance referred to one of the few UK specialists familiar with the US cases.