Law suits for negligence were increasingly likely against people who failed to provide protection from the sun for those in their care, the International Melanoma Conference in Brisbane was told yesterday.
The chairman of the Queensland Cancer Fund, Justice Paul de Jersey of the Queensland Supreme Court, said the effects of sun exposure were "so well-known, so well-documented, so well-publicised" that the danger of liability, for negligence clearly existed.. ¦'¦;
Employers, public authorities, schools - even parents - who failed to provide sun protection for workers and children in their care could face law suits, he said.
Employers not taking , preventative measures were -"recklessly courting disaster".
He said that 10 or 15 years ago, the prospect of . successful claims involving passive smoking would have been dismissed as fanciful.
"I say now, you ignore the potential liability for damages for negligent exposure to the sun at your peril," he said.
Justice de Jersey cited a case settled out of court in North Queensland this year in which a retired wharfie received $5,000 for workrelated skin cancer problems, believed to be the first such payout in Australian legal history.
He said a stream of similar claims was finding its way to the Workers' Compensation Board. In 1992-93, the board received 25 claims for work-related, sun-induced skin disease, most claiming medical expenses, including the cost of sun spot removal.
However, board sources said they did not expect a rush of claims, because of the difficulty in proving a link between sun cancer and exposure at work.
Despite the successful "slip, slop, slap" campaign, skin cancer among Australians was increasing and probably would continue climbing until at least 2010, the Professor of Surgical Services at the University of Newcastle told the conference.
Professor Robert Burton said the incidence of melanoma was rising at a rate of 3 to 7 per cent in most white populations of the world.
However, greater awareness of skin cancer meant earlier diagnoses, and while the incidence was rising, mortality rates were levelling off because cancers were detected when they could be removed safely.
Professor Burton said that because it: took 20 to 30 years to develop melanoma, the sun worshippers of the 1960s were beginning to feel the results.
"We're harvesting today the son behaviours of the '60s and '70s," he said. "So, even if tomorrow everybody in Australia decided to stay out of the sun, we would see the incidence of melanoma continue to increase at least through to 2010 and then it would drop away."
Professor Burton said the rate of skin cancers being removed from Queenslanders had doubled in six years. While most States clustered around the average Australian rate of 4 per cent, declining to 2 per cent in Tasmania, 6 per cent of Queenslanders had skin lesions removed in 1990-91, compared with 3 per cent in 1984-85.
The effects of ozone depletion would be seen after 2000 and would be felt first in Tasmania, Victoria and the South Island of New Zealand, where the ozone hole was most apparent, he said.