July 05, 2010
Canada and Asbestos: Exporting Death
The following editorial appeared in the Chronicle Herald on Monday July 5th
Exporting death
Asbestos, in all its forms, has been declared a human carcinogen by a who’s who of internationally respected health organizations, yet Ottawa, the province of Quebec and the asbestos industry insist Canada’s export – mostly to India – of the deadly material must continue.
For most Canadians, the word “asbestos” conjures visions of either the expensive removal of the cancer-causing substance from old buildings, or the staggering number of cases of lung cancer and other forms of cancer – many in workers who handled the material – caused by the naturally occurring mineral.
Not surprisingly, there’s virtually no use of asbestos in construction anymore in this country.
But for many years, Canada, to its shame, has led an ugly and hypocritical campaign to keep asbestos markets open wherever possible worldwide. Worse, Canada has even fought to keep information on the abundant dangers of asbestos from being distributed – via the UN-sponsored Rotterdam Convention – to countries importing the substance. More than 50 countries have banned the use of asbestos.
Despite the conclusions of, among others, the World Health Organization, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the International Agency for Research in Cancer, and in this country the Canadian Cancer Society and both the Canadian and Quebec Medical Associations, that all types of the mineral are carcinogens, Health Canada still insists chrysotile asbestos – the type mined in Quebec – is safe if used properly.
The tragic irony is that regardless of what safeguards are officially in place, there’s little likelihood that workers in India – where asbestos is used mainly in cement – are strictly following usage protocols.
As the Quebec government pondered a $58-million loan guarantee to revive an old asbestos mine, a group of international health experts issued a stinging rebuke to governments worldwide that have failed to ban the material, despite “overwhelming agreement” that no safe level of exposure exists. It was published last week in the scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
The politics behind continued production – entirely in Quebec – and export of asbestos is killing people.
