The Industrial Injuries Advisory Council (IIAC), the independent body which advises the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB) scheme, today announced the publication of its Position Paper 'Interstitial Fibrosis in Coalworkers'.
The Industrial Injuries Advisory Council was requested, at its Public Meeting in March 2005, to consider whether interstitial fibrosis should be recommended to the Secretary of State as a prescribed disease, in its own right, for the purposes of the Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit scheme.
The Council evaluated the evidence in the scientific literature and found that interstitial fibrosis is common as part of the disease process of coalworkers’ pneumoconiosis (Prescribed Disease (PD) D1) and any disability would be assessed under the terms of this disease and of PD D12 coalworkers’ chronic bronchitis and emphysema. The Council found no evidence available of an excess risk of interstitial fibrosis on its own.
The Council has decided not to make any recommendation for a change to the list of prescribed diseases in respect of interstitial fibrosis.
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