Public Health: Denmark compensates irregular hours workers for cancer risk

The compensation is being paid to women who have worked shift patterns over a period of years and who have developed breast cancer.

They say that research shows that there is an increased risk of cancer in those who spend a significant proportion of their lives out of natural light.

This, they say, reduces levels of melatonin and vitamin D3.

One of the 40 women compensated is an air stewardess. Many stewardesses express concern over the levels of cancer in those that have flown for many years - but blame it on relatively high exposure to the negative aspects of sunlight which penetrate the skin of the airliner. The compensated stewardess, Ulla Mahnkop, told reporters she had flown for 30 years but was not aware of the dangers is posed.'f I had known, I wouldn't have been flying for that many years,' she said.

In the UK, some groups are pressing for the Health and Safety Executive to consider the Danish case and to make similar moves to compensate shift workers. However, others point out that many men work shifts and although men do contract a form of breast cancer, it is not confined to those who work shifts. Also, those who work in e.g. mining are deprived of sunlight - as are those working long hours in warehouses, supermarkets and many offices.The HSE does not consider the case "compelling."

Indeed, Denmark has long winters with long nights and so it is not just shift work that keeps people in the dark, so to speak. But if we look further south, in the tropics, for many the working day starts before full sunlight and ends at or after dusk.

Therefore, there are many questions both for and against the Danish decision.

But the Danes point to a World Health Organisation report that says that breast cancer "may" be caused by such factors as shift work.