Read this article in:
20 April, 2009
Canada was the first nation to officially observe 28 April, the Day of Mourning, as it is called there. On the 20th anniversary of the North American country adopting the date, an irony of ironies has occurred. The Canadian government has been forced to release a report that proves something that it has denied for years: asbestos is hazardous to one’s health.
Several recent articles published by CanWest newspapers point to a March 2008 report on Canadian asbestos commissioned by Health Canada. But that report had been kept secret and out of public view until very recently. Under Access Information law requests, contents of the report are now being made public by the Canada's CanWest News Service.
The report is unequivocal on the link between Canadian chrysotile asbestos and lung cancer. A seven-member panel of international experts did the report for Health Canada. Chairman Trevor Ogden states that the relationship between chrysotile asbestos exposure and lung cancer is "strong."
Mesothelioma is a rarer, but particularly devastating form of cancer that is only known to be caused in humans by asbestos. The panel, as reported by CanWest, found the relationship between chrysotile asbestos and mesothelioma "much less certain."
However, panelist Leslie Stayner says that while the panel agreed that chrysotile might be less strongly linked to mesothelioma than amphibole (another form of asbestos), they did not agree on how great the difference, in effect, might be. Stayner states that the important thing is what isn’t said: that exposure to chrysotile asbestos is safe. All forms of asbestos cause both mesothelioma and lung cancer.
The seven-member panel of international experts included Ogden and Stayner, as well as David Bernstein, Graham Gibbs, Kenneth Crump, Bice Fubini, and Nicholas de Klerk. All panelists signed the consensus statement, but two experts attached reservations highlighting a few concerns, including the "likelihood that risk may not be detectable at modern Canadian exposure levels."
Most uses of asbestos have been banned in Canada for many years. Yet hypocritically, Canada exports over C$100 million of chrysotile asbestos every year to countries such as India, Indonesia, and Thailand on the basis that it can be used safely.
Many health advocates have pointed out that it is ridiculous to suggest that developing nations will avoid the epidemic of asbestos diseases that the mineral has caused in wealthier countries. This is especially true since the Canadian government has worked hard for the last several years to undermine the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent, which would have required Canada to inform countries receiving Canadian asbestos on its hazards before selling it to them. If asbestos is safe to use, why would Canada not want to inform its customers?
Health Canada received the report from its commissioned experts in March 2008, but it took the agency ten months to process the CanWest Access to Information request. Why? Because asbestos is a political issue in Canada's province of Quebec, where the last few hundred asbestos miners work. Money spent propping up this sunset industry and its lobbyists would be much better used creating a "Just Transition" programme for the remaining workers, their families, and their communities.
A ban on asbestos is called for by the World Health Organization (WHO), the ILO, the US Environmental Protection Agency, the Canadian Cancer Society, and the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, to name just a few organisations.
The respected International Agency for Research on Cancer states that all forms of asbestos, including chrysotile asbestos, cause cancer. It is time for Canada to stop disseminating misinformation and come clean with the real facts on asbestos.