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Defense recognizes 83 soldiers killed by exposure to asbestos

2023-04-05T16:13:50.346Z


98.8% of the deceased sailed on Navy ships built with carcinogenic material The Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, on Tuesday at the inauguration of the new director of the Civil Guard, Mercedes González, in Madrid. Eduardo Parra (Europa Press) The Ministry of Defense has recognized in the last two decades the death in the line of duty of 83 soldiers due to exposure to asbestos, according to official data collected by EL PAÍS. The number of deaths is at least six times


The Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, on Tuesday at the inauguration of the new director of the Civil Guard, Mercedes González, in Madrid. Eduardo Parra (Europa Press)

The Ministry of Defense has recognized in the last two decades the death in the line of duty of 83 soldiers due to exposure to asbestos, according to official data collected by EL PAÍS.

The number of deaths is at least six times higher than that registered in the Madrid Metro, where unions and workers have fought for years to have those derived from the inhalation of asbestos or asbestos fibers recognized as occupational diseases.

Contact with this mineral can cause asbestosis (pulmonary fibrosis), pleural mesothelioma, and lung cancer, among other deadly conditions.

Defense has recognized an average of between four and five annual deaths due to exposure to asbestos, although the date does not correspond to the year of death, but to the conclusion of the file.

The main focus of the disease in the Armed Forces admits little doubt: 98.8% of the deceased (82) belonged to the Navy, for only one from the Air Force and none from the Land.

Among the best-known cases, because they involve senior officers, are General José Manuel Bernal Sierra, Navy Machine Inspector, and Admiral Francisco Javier González-Huix, former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The latter was recognized by the Defense as killed in the line of duty in August, despite the fact that he died in December 2020, when he was already in the reserve.

Due to its insulating and fireproof qualities, asbestos was widely used in the construction of ships, especially in boilers, turbines, pipes and even in air conditioning ducts and cabins.

The warships that US President Dwight Eisenhower delivered to Franco, within the framework of the 1953 military agreement, came loaded with asbestos and also, like those that the Bazán public shipyard began to build copying the US model.

The wear produced by the high temperatures and the marine weather ended up degrading the asbestos fibers, which spread in microscopic particles in the closed rooms of the ship.

In Spain, the commercialization and use of asbestos was prohibited in 2002, but Navantia, Bazán's heir company, assures that from 1982 a "systematic policy" of elimination of this carcinogenic material was applied in all newly built ships, although it was he continued to use it for the maintenance of the older ones.

The average life of the vessels is about 30-40 years, but the Spanish Navy still has in service ships that were built after 1982, such as the light transport Contramaestre

Casado

or the patrol vessel

Infanta Cristina

.

The problem is that diseases derived from contact with asbestos have decades of latency and can appear many years after exposure to it.

Outside of older ships, asbestos is also present in many military installations, just as it is in civilian ones.

The most spectacular case is that of the Torrejón de Ardoz base (Madrid), where more than 50 kilometers of hot water pipes were covered with this material.

After the issue came to light, the Air Force contracted for 970,000 euros to remove all the asbestos from the base starting in September of last year.

The recognition of death in the act of service not only gives rise to an extraordinary pension (double the ordinary one), but also to the payment of compensation, beyond the life insurance available to all soldiers, if it is considered that the State has responsibility in death or occupational disease.

Most of those who have been recognized by Defense have received between 100,000 and 120,000 euros, in the case of widows, and 10,000 euros per child, far from the million-dollar compensation that the

Navy

has paid for American sailors who were poisoned on similar ships.

The problem is that it is not easy to demonstrate the cause-effect relationship between a disease and asbestos.

Defense refers to the reports of the Council of State to qualify or not the death as "in the act of duty".

The Troop Military Union (UMT) denounces that 80 of the 113 files opened by the Defense, many still pending resolution, correspond to officers and another 33 to non-commissioned officers, but none to soldiers or sailors.

"Was there no troops, even compulsory military, along with the commanders who fell ill?" the association asks.

The UMT has contacted a law firm to channel the demands of the victims of asbestos in the armies.

Although the Defense is removing it from many facilities, in addition to Torrejón, the association complains that, when it raised the problem with the Ministry's leadership in 2021, they were told that there was no plan to remove it.

On Friday, the Chief of the Navy Staff, Admiral General Antonio Martorell, died at the age of 62, a victim of aggressive lung cancer diagnosed only 10 months earlier.

Although the origin of his illness is unknown, Martorell was commander of the minesweeper

Miño

, one of the ships that Eisenhower delivered to Franco.

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Source: elparis

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