BBC’s ‘Asbestos Alley’ May Have Caused Esther Rantzen’s Lung Cancer, She Says

Dame Esther Rantzen, the former host of the BBC’s long-running program That’s Life!, says she suspects her lung cancer may have been caused by asbestos in the broadcaster’s studios. “I worked in the BBC’s Lime Grove studios for at least 35 happy years from 1965,” she told The Times of London. “Some time in the late-Eighties or early-Nineties, workmen wearing white spacesuits arrived to take down walls and ceilings along the corridors where I wrote our scripts to remove the asbestos, which did not surprise any of us since my team called our regular route to the canteen ‘asbestos alley.’” A definitive link has not been proven between the chemical and Rantzen’s cancer, which has progressed to stage 4, but her claims follow a bombshell $2.1 million settlement by the BBC last year over the deaths of 11 former staff who died from mesothelioma, a rare cancer caused by prolonged exposure to asbestos. A spokesperson for the broadcaster told The Times that they could not comment on individual cases, adding, “The BBC manages asbestos in accordance with applicable regulations and statutory requirements.”