Friday, June 24, 2011
Asbestos: Bad for Canada but good for poor countries
This is an amazing and scary situation. Asbestos has not been used in Canada for the last 25 years and the buildings which already had asbestos proceeded to remove it because it is an established fact that it is a very dangerous substance to human health. However, the Harper government and asbestos companies are saying it is safe and it is being exported to poor countries like India,Indonesia and the Philippines. Will the Harper government become anymore coldblooded and hypocritical?
Read the CBC story here. Recommend this post
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So indicative of Harper's attitude for those *not within his biblical circle*.
ReplyDeleteHarper thinks he is a genius. He can kill millions without firing a shot and make money too. Why not send asbestos to Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea and Libya. Ghastly!
ReplyDeleteActually Canada still uses white asbestos in road mixings and USA also use it for a number of specialised products. White asbestos is a completely different mineral to the blue and brown types of asbestos which ARE genuinly harmful. Joy to the blanket term 'asbestos' for creating alarmist news stories. You should really do more research on the subject.
ReplyDeleteMonkey, monkey, monkey, how do you explain close to 200,000 deaths annually because of asbestos.
ReplyDeleteIf it is so good then why Canada does not export it to US, Europe, China or Russia. Why poor countries only?
LeDaro.. That figure is completely innaccurate and has no scientific basis whatsoever. For a start many 'asbestos' related diseases are misdiagnosed and none of them are caused by exposure to the 'serpentine' form of asbestos that is mined in Canada. A lot of mesotheliomas actually occur naturally but there is no money to be made from them. Smoking related cancers are indistinguishable from asbestos related ones and doctors, beleive it or not, actually recieve commissions for referrals to claims lawyers. Plus.. its always easier to tell a smoker's grieving family that their loved one was a victim of something beyond their control. Asbestos related cancers take 15-60 years to develop so many of the deaths we see today were actually caused by exposure to amphibole forms of asbestos during a time when working conditions were very poor and unregulated. Today the air inside these mines is cleaner than the air outside. White asbestos cement products are cheap and durable and safe and exactly what poor countries need. Using the blanket term 'asbestos' is the main issue here. You should distinguish between the different minerals (chrysotile, amosite, crocidolite, tremolite etc). You wouldn't justify a ban on 'metals' by reffering to the deaths caused by exposure to lead.. Would you?
ReplyDelete“….so many of the deaths we see today were actually caused by exposure to amphibole forms of asbestos during a time when working conditions were very poor and unregulated.
ReplyDeleteToday the air inside these mines is cleaner than the air outside. White asbestos cement products are cheap and durable and safe and exactly what poor countries need.” Monkey
Monkey, my friend it is true about Canada. However, in case of poor countries similar precautions are not taken when handling asbestos. Workers have very little or no protective gear. Moreover, it is not strictly used for roads. It is used for insolation and other household products and that is where the crux of the problem lies. I seriously doubt that even white asbestos is used for insolation anymore in Canada, US and other Western countries.
The risk posed by white asbestos cement materials is 'too small to be measured'. This has been scientifically proven. You may be quite shocked to know that the 'biopersistency' of white asbestos (that is the time it takes for the lungs to clear it) is approx 10-15 days, whereas the biopersistence of cellulose fibre is more like 1000 days making it far more likely to overburdon the lungs and cause health problems! This is what is being used to replace white asbestos materials and it hasnt even been properly tested yet. Unfortunately many asbestos cement producers jumped on the bandwagon long ago and switched to alternative fibres as the sheets made from them dont last as long and so they make a lot more money replacing them. The financial burdon this puts on poor countries far outweighs any supposed health risks. A bit of white asbestos firmly bonded in cement is the least of their worries. The real crime here is claims lawyers exploting victims for profit. By exaggerating the risks from white asbestos they are creating spurious claims and sucking vital funds away from the real victims, bankrupting law obiding companies and crippling world economies. You will be amazed when you start to scratch the surface of this massive deception.
ReplyDelete