Asbestos is a confirmed human carcinogen, which has brought havoc in the life of millions of people around the world; therefore its continuing use in India needs to be eliminated with immediate effect.

Asbestos is a generic term used for several naturally occurring fibrous, silicate materials and is used in a variety of everyday as well as industrial applications.

The profound tragedy of the asbestos epidemic is that asbestos related death is entirely prevented by not using asbestos.

The hazards of asbestos as a mineral were recognised by the Supreme Court of India in its judgement in the case of Consumer Education and Research Centre vs. Union of India in 1995. In general, asbestos is extremely thin, silky and flexible and the fibres can withstand temperatures up to 600°C.

Approximately 95 percent of mined asbestos is used for the manufacture of asbestos-cement products. Apart from the direct exposure to workers or persons involved in the manufacturing or mining of asbestos, there is also a general environmental exposure that occurs due to wear and tear of asbestos products. This represents a serious public health risk. There are medically proven instances of asbestos dust having been found in the sputum of persons exposed to asbestos 30 years earlier, with no known exposure in the intervening period.

The first case of asbestosis was reported in a medical journal in 1924 where a woman who had worked in an asbestos textile factory for 17 years and died at the age of 33. The examination showed the lung scarring that is associated with asbestos related diseases.

White asbestos continues to be in use in India although other kinds such as blue and brown asbestos are banned. It is used mainly for water pipes or as roofing sheets in the construction industry. Asbestos dust can be inhaled while drilling a hole, cutting a pipe, repairing, renovating or demolishing a building. Its effects are far-reaching, affecting everyone from the person mining it to the ultimate consumer. Estimates suggest that there are about 100,000 people engaged in asbestos industry.

Clinical reports show that asbestosis, mesothelioma and lung cancer can show up even 25 to 40 years after exposure to asbestos. World Health Organisation (WHO) has categorically said, There is practically no safe level of exposure or use of asbestos against cancer". WHO has recognised that all varieties of asbestos are carcinogenic, causing both lung cancer and mesothelioma or cancer of the lung lining.

The European Respiratory Society (ERS) has warned, a time bomb in the lungs is ticking in developing countries where asbestos use is going on unabated. The effects of asbestos exposure manifest decades later. Millions of people largely in the poorer countries continue to be exposed to asbestos dust. “The data revealed at the 11th European Congress on lung disease and Respiratory medicine makes it clear that the ravages of asbestos are far from over and developing countries are storing up a bleak future for themselves,” the society warned.

A scientific paper published in the National Medical Journal of India 2001 (January-February), titled ‘Carcinogenicity of asbestos: Convincing evidence, conflicting interests’, stated, “A look at the history of corporate activities in asbestos-related research reveals a disturbing trend. Information that was made available, through legal interventions, clearly shows how for half a century the asbestos industry in collaboration with some academic leaders of occupational medicine successfully suppressed evidence against asbestos.

According to a paper entitled Present Status of Asbestos Mining and Related Health Problems in India - A Survey by A.L. Ramanathan and V. Subramanian published in the Industrial Health Journal in 2000: “In India, asbestos raw material is received from Canada without any warning and India sends back the finished product to them along with a warning. In India, workers slice open the bags of Canadian asbestos with knives, then shake the bags into troughs and mix it with cement to make piping.

Occupational exposures to asbestos constitute a major health hazard in India. On 7th May, 2003 Miss Mabel Rebello, member of parliament in the Upper House had presented a petition signed by S.S. Chouhan, General Secretary, Indian National Building Construction Workers Federation (INBCWF), New Delhi and two others regarding need for the legislative measures to improve the conditions of unorganized workers/construction workers/migrant labourers and to ban use of asbestos and close asbestos mines and factories and destroy all existing asbestos.

Immediate national and global ban on asbestos was demanded at World Social Forum in January 2004 in Mumbai.

According to a study conducted by the Institute of Public Health Engineering (IPHE), an estimated two million workers in the United States will die from workplace exposure to asbestos, though the standards for its manufacture there are 20 times more stringent than in developing countries such as India.

The health consequences of the use of asbestos in contemporary industrial society have been amply documented in the international scientific literature. The toll of illness and death among asbestos workers in mining, construction and heavy industry is well known.

Asbestos makers argue that it is a cheap material, ideal for use in developing countries. 50 per cent of the sales of asbestos cement are in the rural sector and 30 and 20 per cent in the industrial and urban sectors respectively. However, its affordability is due in part to favourable government policies.

There is an urgent need for policy changes to ensure just transition of workers from asbestos factories to factories of alternative products. Failure to Act in right earnest will be a cost countless number of workers death, which is yet to be documented. A situation is beginning to emerge where documentation alone can be done because the fate of asbestos exposed workers and citizens are sealed in any case.

GLOBAL SCENARIO

Countries, which have banned asbestos, include Iceland, Norway, El Salvador, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, Switzerland, Austria, The Netherlands, Finland, Italy, Germany, Croatia, Japan, Kuwait, France, Slovenia, Poland, Monaco, Saudi Arabia, Lithuania, UK, Ireland, Latvia, Chile, Argentina, Spain, Luxemburg, Slovak Republic, New Zealand, Uruguay, Japan and Australia. Belgium has put in place a partial ban, but is yet to ban white asbestos. The countries of the European Union have agreed to a ban on asbestos effective from 2005.