IMC India - Killer Asbestos

Killer Asbestos
By Gopal Krishna 29/04/2002 At 05:43

The double standard of mutinational companies is no more a secret. The way Canada, a asbestos casbestos producing country has no home use policy but promotes its use and products in other country imperils the life and environment of India especially asbestos workers. Asbestos exposure leads to one of the most painful deaths and the disease manifests itself after 30 to 40 years.

Filed by: Gopal Krishna
Word Count: 2016 words
Filed on: 27/4/2002

Asbestos, the Silent Killer takes its toll

Even as a 12-member committee formed by Union Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) debates ban on Asbestos, taking cognisance of the inhuman conditions of the asbestos mining operations in India, an anti-Asbestos Resolution has been passed by the Indian Association of Occupational Health (IAOH). Although world over thirty-six countries have already banned asbestos and even World Trade Organisation (WTO) has given a judgement against it, the Indian states and the industry continue to use it in many products such as water supply pipes. Citing lack of funds, West Bengal and some other state governments are using asbestos cement pipes in water supply projects as asbestos attracts 8 per cent government duty, while steel attracts 15 percent.

Activists from India, Australia, US, Malaysia, Italy and South Korea along with the Indian medical community has called for a ban on all activities relating to mining, manufacture, use and trade in asbestos. At a symposium organised on 12-13 April by IAOH, the experts deliberated the elimination of all the activities related to asbestos and its products which results in serious health hazards. Alarmed at its continuing, its hazardous consequences and misinformation campaign of the asbestos industry, civil society organisations have launched Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI) to raise public awareness about it.

Dr Qamar Rahman, head of the toxicology division of Industrial Toxicology Research Centre (ITRC), Lucknow, one of the most renowned toxicologists of India revealed a very shocking data on cellular and genetic mutations and about the plight of the asbestos mine workers especially women. "Even one fibre, if it reaches the right place in a cell can cause irreversible damage - leading to asbestosis, lung cancer or mesothelioma". She informed the scientific and medical community present about the occurrences of asbestos related diseases that includes cases where women have died after 6-7 years of the first exposure as was reported by the government doctors.

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What is Asbestos

Asbestos is a term applied to several naturally occurring fibrous, silicate minerals. The fibres are extremely thin, silky and flexible and can be spun into yarn and woven into fabric. These are deadly carcinogens. They are generally resistant to chemical and biological attacks. About 66 percent of the mined asbestos is used for the manufacturing of asbestos-cement products.

Broadly asbestos is of two groups-One of Serpentine variety composed of soft, silky, pliable, curly fibres. This variety consists of Chrysotile/white asbestos. The second group is of Amphibole, its crystal structure is such that it produces elongated fragments when the crystal is broken. There are five varieties of amphiboles: amosite, crocidolite/blue asbestos, anthophylite, tremolite and actinolite. All kinds of asbestos are carcinogenic and cause fibrosis leading to distortion of lung.

International Scenario

Asbestos production happens in 25 countries with there being seven being major producers which includes Russia and Canada. Canada accounts for 80 percent of the world production with no home use policy. Asbestos has been banned in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, New Zealand, Chile and other countries. All European Union countries have agreed to put in place bans by 2005.

When France (Everit Company case) banned import of asbestos from Canada, WTO's legal body ruled that asbestos is an element that every country has the right to ban it.
"Public concern, regulations and liabilities involved have ended the use of asbestos in the US, its usage is down to 2 percent from the peak level used in 1974, said Dr Barry Castleman, one of the key camapaigners agaiinst asbestos.

At present use of asbesto is banned in 22 developed countries, including in 16 in EU, the US, New Zealand and developing countries like Indonesia, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Argentina, Malasia and Brazil have also decided to ban it. Ultimately it's a conflict between the money of the asbestos industry and the knowledge of the scientific and medical community. We are optimistic about the fact that ultimately the misinformation campaign of the industry will get defeated and public health hazard due to exposure to asbestos will get exposed, said Fernanda Giannasi, an internationally renowned labour inspector. She is known as the Erin Bronchovich of Brazil.

According to International Ban Asbestos Secretariat-asbestos has been responsible for over 200,000 deaths in the United States and will cause million more deaths worldwide.
The Collegium Ramazzini's gave a call for international ban on asbestos stating that "all forms of asbestos are an occupational and environmental hazard of catastrophic proportion. The profound tragedy of the asbestos epidemic is that all illnesses and deaths related to asbestos are entirely preventable".

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The Collegium Ramazzini is an international academic society that examines critical issues in occupational and environmental medicine. The Collegium is dedicated to the prevention of disease and the promotion of health. The Collegium derives its name from Bernardino Ramazzini, the father of occupational medicine, a professor of medicine of the Universities of Modena and Padua in the late 1600s and the early 1700s. The Collegium is comprised of 180 physicians and scientists from 30 countries, each of whom is elected to membership. The Collegium is independent of commercial interests. The first Indian physician to become fellow in this Collegium is Dr. T K Joshi.
The International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS), Environment Health Criteria 203 concludes and recommends protection of human health from exposure to chrysotile asbestos because it poses increased risks for asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma. "No threshold has been identified for carcinogenic risks". It adds, where safer substitute material are for chrysotile asbestos is available, they should be considered for use. IPCS specifically discourages the use of chrysotile asbestos in construction materials, the use for 90 percent of all asbestos in India.

Indian Scenario

The statistics cited in a paper titled: Present Status of Asbestos Mining and Related Health Problems
in India - A Survey by AL. Ramanathan and V. Subramanian paints a horrific picture of the health repercussions for 100,000 Indians currently experiencing occupational exposure to asbestos in mining and processing facilities throughout the country. The paper was published in Industrial Health Journal 2001, 39, 309-315, detail total monthly production figures of 1750 tonnes of tremolite and chrysotile at mines in
Andra Pradesh, Rajastan, Bihar, Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Manipur. In addition to locally
sourced fibre, imported asbestos is also widely used:

"In India raw material asbestos is received from Canada without any warning and India sends back the finished product to them along with the warning hazardous product. In India workers slice open the bags of
Canadian asbestos with knives, then shaking the bags into troughs and mixing it with cement to make piping. Here the unprotected workers are completely covered in asbestos dust, where precautions are absolutely not in place."

While the use of asbestos is decreasing in the West, asbestos consumption almost doubled in Asia between 1970 and 1995. If the ubiquity of asbestos use and working conditions described in this paper are typical throughout the region, then the European mesothelioma epidemic identified by Peto et al in 1999, which is predicted to claim 250,000 lives from mesothelioma by 2034, will most certainly spread, according to Laurie Kazan-Allen.

"We have given representation to the National Human Rights Commission to look into the plight of the workers in the asbestos industry," said Sudam Mitra from Kalyanshree, a Kolkata based Non Governmental Organisation (NGO). The most vulnerable and affected people are the workers in asbestos mines who work under extremely hazardous conditions, according to studies done by the Consumer Education and Research Center (CERC), a public interest group and the National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) of Ahmedabad.

In India asbestos is used in the manufacture of pressure and non-pressure pipes used for water supply, sewage, and drainage, packing material, brake linings and jointing used in automobiles, heavy equipment, nuclear power plants, thermal power plants amongst others. The current demand for asbestos in India is to the tune of 100,000 metric tonnes, one fifth of which is mined in India. Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar are major asbestos mining belt of India with 20,000 tonnes being mined from these three states yearly. In addition, raw asbestos worth Rs 40 to 50 crores is imported annually.

According to a misinformation campaign by Asbestos Information Centre (AIC), Chrysotile asbestos, is a magic mineral. AIC will have us believe that the pattern of asbestos is entirely different in India hence most of the diseases pattern seen in the west bear no relevance to the magnitude of Indian experience. As if like human beings asbestos too has nationality. Contrary to these misleading facts, Dr Rahman, informed that if even one fibre reaches the right place in the body it can be lethal. The wanton greed and callousness of asbestos industry and the inhuman conditions of the mine and milling workers of imperils their life.
Not only that the industry has started harassing even the occupational and medical professionals who have disclosed the gravity of hazards of asbestos. Dr. Tushaar Kant Joshi, a well known occupational health expert, is one such professional who has been treated this way for his medical efforts to bring asbestos hazards under control in India and for having a public discussion on the justification for banning asbestos.
India uses 107, 000 tonnes of asbestos fibre a year of which 60 percent is imported from Canada. About 1, 00, 000 MT of chrsotile asbestos are imported annually. The Rajgoplan committee was scheduled to report to the policy implementation cell of the commerce and industry ministry by November 15. They say if banned about 100,000 people engaged in mining would lose their jobs. This includes 60,000 engaged in mining.

In India, asbesto is mined in five states-Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Prasesh and Haryana. Although India has banned the import of asbestos wastes since October 1998, the import data shows 500 tonnes of asbestos has been imported by India between April 1998 to March 1999 from Brazil and Canada. The asbestos waste mostly contained banned asbestos.

Health Impact

According to a January, 2002 Asbestos, health and environment, an in depth study conducted by Institution of Public Health Engineers (IPHE), Kolkotta inhalation of asbestos fibre causes cancer of lung, lun lining and abdomen and can take 20 years or more to manifest. Owing to commercial interests, despite the fact this information was available with asbestos manufactures for about 100 years, the industry never allowed the public access to this information. Diseases related to asbestos exposure include, asbestosis-an irreversible and progressive lung condition which results from the inhalation of asbestos fibres; Mesothelioma- cancer of the thin membrane enclosing in the lungs; and lung cancer. WHO and USEPA has recommended that asbestos is bad even when used as roofing material for schools. Experts' fear that 550,000 workers will be affected by asbestos related diseases in the next 10 years world over; 240,000 of these will be India alone.

Conclusion
It is criminal to ignore the grave public health consequences due to the frozen passivity of the government. The committee headed by S Rajgopalan, joint secretary, MoEF was set up in August 2001 to find out whether asbestos should be banned but it is yet to submit its report. The IOAH, medical experts, environmental and health groups feel that it is high time the government of India worked out a timetable to Ban Asbestos for once and all. IPHE study underlines the fact that there are alternative and viable substitutes of asbestos available. The government should also sign International Labour Organisation's Convention No. 162 concerning safety in the use of asbestos which was adopted in 1986 and entered into force on 1989 to show that it is concerned about its citizen's health. Now that the lid has been blown off industry's cover-up of asbestos hazards and there are various clinical, epidemiological and laboratory studies that testify these facts, there is an urgent need to launch a campaign to abolish its use.

-- a development journalist writing on failed technology dumping, corporate crimes and IT in rural India. E-mail:

meetgopal27@rediffmail.com

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Asbestos and Sewage: Bad Science

David Anderson 04/05/2002 06:46

Mr. Anderson is Canada's current Minister of the Environment

Asbestos and Sewage: Bad Science Equals Wasteful, Misguided Policy
By David Anderson

As printed in Monday Magazine
November 5th, 1992

The media has finally discovered something: Canadian asbestos isn’t a health hazard.

The tardy revelation comes more than a year after the Canadian asbestos industry and Quebec government jointly covinced the U.S. judiciary that Canadian asbestos is not as hazardous to health as U.S. and Canadian regulators had claimed for years.

Over $1 billion has been spent over two decades to remove asbestos from public buildings in Victoria alone, the cost of removing asbestos from the three government buildings in the Provincial Museum and Archives complex was $10 million. The Greater Victoria school district spent an average of $100,00 per year to remove asbestos from half of its schools.

B.C. and Victoria taxpayers have a right to ask why such an enormous expenditure continued in the face of so much reputable scientific evidence that the initial and damning American studies on asbestos in the 1970’s were flawed. Those who may have lost property or family members in home or building fires that asbestos insulation might have prevented have even more pointed questions to ask. All of us have a right to know why the responsible regulatory agencies have failed us.

Specifically, we have a right to know why the original studies on cancer and asbestos were not subjected to the scientific analysis and criticism appropriate for such far-reaching conclusions. And whether producers of competitive insulating materials were able to exert improper influence on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and, directly or indirectly, on the Canadian Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and the Canadian Department of Health and Welfare. We have a right to know whether tobacco interests were involved in research designed to blame asbestos alone for cancer, rather than research to explore the impact of the combined effect of smoking and contact with asbestos.

At the federal level, we have a right to know whether adequate funding was provided for research to check the validity of the earlier studies. And whether medical specialists or other scientists in government who suspected that the earlier work was flawed were able to speak and write freely about their views. We have a right to know whether some “party line” on asbestos was required of the people we pay to follow these matters on our behalf.

Provincially, we have a right to know what position, and why, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of the Environment took on this issue.

These are important issues. There were a number of individuals and organizations who had a direct interest in promoting a link between asbestos and cancer. There is a strong smell of money, cover-up and corruption about the entire affair.

There are other lessons. Ther parallel between the billion-dollar asbestos removal program and the $400 million that the B.C. government wants taxpayers to spend on unnecessary sewage treatment is too striking to ignore. The asbestos issue shows how administrators-particularly in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-use bad science to establish an enourmously expensive and wasteful policy, one particularly damaging to Canadian interests.

Surprise, surprise: the Pacific Northwest EPA office also wants Victoria to spend $400 million on sewage treatment. You can be sure the agency has its own interest, not our interests-nor the environment’s interests-in mind. You can be sure their position is not based on science.

Even if the Ministry of the Environmnet had no part in the asbestos fiasco, the environment minister should closely question his officials on similar regulatory initiatives, particularly the Greater Victoria sewage issue. There is far less scientific evidence to suggest a problem with Victoria’s sewage than there was to suggest a link between cancer and asbestos. In the asbestos case there was bad science. In the ministry’s posititon on the sewage treatment issue, science is simply missing.

Better to be sage than sorry, said the anti-asbestos lobby when questions were raised about whether the policy of asbestos removal made any sense. The same line is used by the ministry to promote sewage treatment. Who knows, the officials say, there might be something in sewage effluent that decades hene may prove harmful. So we are told to spend the $400 million- and incur substantial annual operating coste- even though nobody knows what substance that something might be, nor even whether treatment will remove it, whatever it is.

It is claimed that this is just a simple application of the precautionary principle, but it is not. Effective use of the precautionary principle in environmental regulation requires at least a prleiminary analysis of the possible risks of future harm. In short, it requires an assessment of facts, and the application of informed judgement.

Instead, the government’s strategy appears more straightforward: just put your brain in neutral and your judgement on hold. Do not assess the risk or the probability of occurrence. Do not assess the possibility of future harm. Ignore what benefits might arise from $400 million worth of expenditures in other areas. Big Brother knows best.

Nothing is ever risk-free. There is simply no such thing as incontrovertible scientific evidence that any product, natural or manufactured, whatever whatever it may be, is incapable of some possible harm to the environment or humanity. Risk is a component of every aspect of our lives. The important thing is to recognize this, and make intelligent choices between competing risks and competing benefits.

Canadian and American government agencies-the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the federal Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, the B.C. Ministry of the Environment-would have us believe we can avoid risk by uncritically following their advice on asbestos. Now, with far less scientific reason, they want us to do it again on sewage treatment.

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Canada's deadly trade in asbestos
by Mark Bourrie

Ottawa, March 25 -- Canada is starting work this summer on a billion dollar project to renovate its parliamentary buildings and cleanse them of asbestos, which has been found to cause cancer.
The project will take six years to complete but, in the meantime, Canadian government agents are still pushing exports of the fibre. Canada even has gone so far as to argue a challenge at the World Trade Organization that a proposed French ban on asbestos imports would be an illegal trade practice.
Despite recent warnings that asbestos was the cause of 500,000 cancer victims in western Europe alone, Canadian asbestos producers continue to promote and sell their fibre worldwide - especially to developing nations.
Asbestos is used as a binder in cement, as insulation, and in anti-fire walls. It is also a potent carcinogen with a long, well-documented legacy of death.
The danger comes when small asbestos fibres are released and inhaled by labourers. The fibres cause cancerous growths in the lungs, lung lining and abdomen but can take 20 years or more to manifest.
In 1997, Canada exported 430,000 tonnes of asbestos - more than 96% of production - most of it to the developing world. Canada is the world's second-largest exporter of asbestos after Russia.
Union activists, who have visited India and other developing countries say, however, that the public relations efforts of the government and the asbestos industry are simply window-dressing to hide the fact that most people who work with the natural mineral fibre risk cancer.
Critics of Canada's asbestos exports say the country is exporting death to protect the profits of a handful of companies and the jobs of 1,600 miners.
"What's the difference between land mines and asbestos?" asks Dr. Barry Castleman, author of a respected book on the danger of asbestos. "A key difference, of course, is that Canada doesn't export land mines."
At the heart of the issue is Canada's own precarious political situation. All of the asbestos mines in Canada are in Quebec, a predominantly French-speaking province with a separatist government.
Federal and provincial politicians are pushing asbestos exports to prove that they are successful at developing overseas markets, and are protective of Quebec workers. Critics of asbestos exports say the industry would probably be allowed to die if it was centred in any other part of the country.
"Personally, I believe this is all about Quebec politics," says Canadian Auto Workers Health and Safety director Cathy Walker. "The Canadian and Quebec governments are competing with one another to show just how prepared they all are to protect Quebec jobs."
The real costs will be borne by the developing world, she says.
Walker just returned from India, where she saw unprotected workers slashing open bags of asbestos fibres. In places where the asbestos was being mixed into cement, clouds of the carcinogenic fibres swirled around workers.
In Britain, the Cancer Research Campaign said in January that its study into the European asbestos-linked cancer epidemic should sound alarm bells everywhere, "particularly in the developing world where uncontrolled asbestos is still very common," said CRC director Gordon McVie.
Seven of Canada's top 10 markets are Third World countries. Still, the Canadian government, the asbestos industry and lobby groups are trying to put a good face on the asbestos industry.
Recently, diplomats stationed here were flown to asbestos- producing regions on an all-expense-paid first-class junket.
Journalists have been cultivated with similar perks.
Philip Landrigan, of New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine - the centre that first linked cancer to asbestos in the 1960s - says the asbestos lobby's claim that the fibre is safe is "absolutely untrue."
"Asbestos remains an important cause of human illness," says Landrigan. "All forms of asbestos are carcinogenic, and that includes Canadian chrysotile."
Julian Peto, head of epidemiology at the University of London, who wrote the January study on the Euro-epidemic, says there's no safe way to use asbestos in developed nations. In developing nations, where there is little money for protective clothing and ventilation systems, workers are being poisoned by the thousands, he said.
"There is no way you can control it in Britain, let alone the third world," Peto says.
"The thing about building materials is that they are completely uncontrollable. They are often used casually, by not very skilful people, who break them and drill them and cut them in small parcels."
In Canada, people working with asbestos are forced to limit their exposure to the fibres. Consumer products that release asbestos fibres into the atmosphere are banned, and the sale of loose asbestos to consumers is prohibited under law.
However, most Canadian asbestos exports are of loose fibres, which are shipped in large reinforced paper bags.
Canadian asbestos producers say they're training foreign workers in the safe handling of asbestos, through the Asbestos Institute.
The institute, founded in 1984 by the federal and Quebec governments and the asbestos industry, has been the beneficiary of more than $10 million in Canadian government funding.
Ten European Union members have banned asbestos. France, which banned it in 1997 for health reasons, now faces a Canadian challenge at the WTO. Canada argues the ban violates Canada's rights under international trade rules.
In a speech delivered last year before an audience of occupational health professionals from around the world who had gathered in Italy, Dr. Joseph LeDou of the University of California's Medical School attacked Canada's asbestos-promoting efforts.
LeDou said Canada was engaged in "the exploitation of ignorance and poverty" in Asia, Africa and Latin America." He accused Canadian policy makers of "setting up the developing world "for an epidemic of asbestos-related disease, the costs of which will fall on countries that can ill afford it."
The above article by the Inter Press Service appeared in the South- North Development Monitor (SUNS).