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Jason Gibson - Source: Close Up -
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The parents of a painter who died of leukaemia are calling for NZ to adopt a system of warning signs on solvent containers, instead of the numbering system used currently.
Jason Gibson was the first case ever identified as industrial death from solvents . In November 2006 he was hospitalised after a bleeding nose. Six days later he suffered five brain haemorrages and died - he had Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia.
Jason's parents are battling for a better system to make people aware how fatal solvents can be.
"It's just not in the painting trade it's right across the board, in all aspects of life, trades and professions, hairdressing, theatre, nurses, truck drivers," says his mother Annette.
"It doesn't matter whether you work with it for two years or whether you work for it for 20 years it will kill some people who use it and others it will make them sick for the rest of their life."
Two solvents in particular, xylene and toulene, were identified in Jason's blood. Both solvents are derivatives of Benzene, a proven substance that produces cancer.
In response to their son's death, Annette and her husband Tony started the Glove Up campaign. Their aim is to get all category 1 solvents marked with a Glove Up sign, to make it easier to identify potentially harmful solvents so the right precautions can be taken.
Currently solvents are identified by a numbering system:
Category 1 - Known or presumed human carcinogens based on human evidence.
Category 2 - Suspected human carcinogens.
"We are the only country in the world that work on a number system everyone else has a sign or an explanation such as 'this product is a known cancer causing substance'," says Tony.
The Gibson's have had some sucess.
Resene, New Zealand's biggest paint company is getting on board.
But ERMA, the official body responsible for risk management, says while it's seen the Gibsons' revised labelling system it remains satisfied with its own numbered warnings.
Visit here for more information on solvents and the Glove Up campaign
