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Other chemicals, like colophony, cause allergic reactions in the respiratory system, including occupational asthma. Occupational asthma is the most commonly reported occupational disease according to SWORD, the UK respiratory disease monitoring scheme.

In 1995, a National Asthma Campaign telephone survey of over 300 small and medium-sized businesses found 59% did not know what occupational asthma was, 62% of firms who understood the condition had done nothing to control the hazards, and 81% had taken no action to control exposure to occupational asthmagens.

In a study of 100 patients of Birmingham Heartlands Hospital's occupational lung disease unit, 91% said they had never been informed about the risks of getting asthma at work, and 73% had never seen a safety data sheet. Most worked in the car industry, hospitals, foundries or with wood. Many worked with chemicals well known to cause asthma, such as isocyanates, colophony and wood dust. Although almost half worked for firms which had an occupational health service, less than one-third had pre-employment screening. The results of this study paint a very different picture of COSHH compliance compared with the HSE's 1991-92 evaluation survey which found 80% of employers provided workers with adequate information and training. The Birmingham study said, "There were only modest improvements after the introduction of COSHH" [S. Siriruttanapruk and P. S. Burge, The impact of the COSHH regulations on workers with occupational asthma, Occupational Medicine 1997, 47(2), 101-104; COSHH - the HSE's 1991/92 evaluation survey, Occupational Health Rev., 1993, 44, 10-15].

According to the Labour Force Survey, 70,000 people say that their work either caused their asthma, or made it worse. Over 1,000 new cases of occupational asthma are reported to the UK's Surveillance of Work-related and Occupational Respiratory Diseases (SWORD) scheme each year. SWORD was set up in 1989, funded by the HSE, and pools data from chest clinics and occupational physicians.

This is likely to be a significant underestimate and TUC figures suggest that up to 400,000 people suffer from asthma because of their work. Occupational asthma causes over a million days' sick leave each year, four times as many in 1994 as were lost in strikes.

The TUC says there should be a national asthma register, an extension of the official definition of occupational asthma to cover irritants, an ACoP to bolster existing laws, better compensation, and a licensing system for manufacturers of chemicals that cause asthma (Hazards at work: TUC guide to health and safety, TUC, 1997; Rory O'Neill, Asthma at work: causes, effects and what to do about them, TUC/Sheffield Occupational Health Project, 1995).

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