It may not just be a lack of awareness that is making a comeback. A recent conference in Vienna, calling for a worldwide ban on the use of chrysotile (a type of asbestos), was disrupted when it emerged that a pro-asbestos conference was being held in the same venue.

The pro-asbestos conference was organised by the asbestos industry with a view to promote the opinion that asbestos isn't dangerous – hard to believe, given the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

According to the anti-asbestos conference organisers, a big problem is the aggressive worldwide lobby of the asbestos industry, which focuses increasingly on developing countries now that asbestos is completely banned in more than 40 countries.

Asbestos has been banned in the UK for a few decades now, but workers are still exposed to it all the time. Two companies were fined this week after two employees, who were working on a derelict barn, fell through a fragile asbestos ceiling. The employees suffered severe spinal injuries and multiple fractures – but how long will they have to wait to see if the exposure to asbestos has caused any lasting damage?

It is predicted that by 2010 some 10,000 people in Britain will die every year from exposure to asbestos, more than twice the number of road accident deaths.

There are up to six million tonnes of asbestos in schools, hospitals, ships, offices and factories - and the homes we live in. Asbestos has been the main cause of occupational ill health from about 1950 onwards and is still the greatest single work-related cause of death from ill health. And yet still people may be unaware of the risk, as the launch of the new HSE campaign shows.

Asbestos may be the hidden killer – the facts about the damage it can do, however, should be anything but hidden.