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Mesothelioma Awareness: High-Income National Government Exploits Vulnerable Developing Countries with Asbestos and a Time-Bomb of Deadly Disease.

The Mesothelioma Research Foundation of America along with the Canadian Medical Association, the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS), and several other anti-asbestos campaigners are calling on the Quebec Government not to provide loan guarantees to a consortium who intend to restore Canada’s dying asbestos export industry.

Exposure to asbestos has proven since the 1960’s and 70’s to be the leading cause of a specific lung cancer called Mesothelioma.  Diagnosis of having this deadly disease is almost always a painful, death sentence.  For example, as the effects of asbestos on workers from the United Kingdom who were exposed in the 60’s and 70’s continue to manifest,  records show deaths from mesothelioma have increased from 895 in 1990 to 2,249 in 2008.  There is no indication of this declining, and this trend is beginning to be recognized in other high-income nations who used asbestos products including the United States.

Let our voice be heard and we ask you to join us in the call for Social Responsibility by all nations in supporting a ban on asbestos and its export.  (Click the LIKE and SHARE buttons on our web site, and let FaceBook tell-your-friends).

Canada, as well as Russia, Kazakhstan and Brazil, has been a major exporter of chrysotile asbestos.  But, Canada’s chrysotile resources have been dwindling and its Jeffrey Mine open-pit operation was shut down.  Now, an Indian-led consortium (including Montreal-based financier Biljit Chadha) is planning to reopen and  convert the Jeffrey Mine into an underground operation, and is asking the Quebec and Canada Governments to provide loan guarantees for the consortium’s effort to sustain asbestos exports for another 25 years.

While there has been a ban on asbestos in many high-income countries for more than two decades (by law or de facto) including Canada, and the U.K. in 1999 specifically banned chrysotile asbestos, Canada has bolstered its income with asbestos exported to developing countries, where few or no protections exist for their people. Since the Quebec and Canada Governments recognize that restrictions and regulations of asbestos are essential to protect their citizens from the devastating effects of this hazardous product, why do they allow asbestos to be exported to other countries that do not have the resources, or maybe the desire to be responsible, for the protection of people from asbestos hazards being imported into the developing nations?

We believe high-income developed nations who are asbestos hazard and mesothelioma aware, like Canada, have a global social responsibility to protect their people as well as the citizens elsewhere who are being exposed to harmful asbestos exported by those who are knowledgeable about this danger.  Canada, and all nations who are asbestos mesothelioma aware, can not be allowed to abdicate responsibility for exporting and inducing asbestos related cancer.  The association between asbestos exposure and lung cancer,  specifically mesothelioma, have long been established and recognized by high-income developed nations.  The government of these nations, including Quebec and Canada, should not be allowing the export of asbestos to developing nations where there are few or no workplace regulations to protect workers or the general population from asbestos lethal effects.  The governments of high-income developed nations are called to set an example to all nations (like Russia, Kazakhstan and Brazil) by stopping the export of asbestos and declaring this practice as unacceptable.

Please help us have a loud voice about this matter!  Help increase Mesothelioma Awareness in the world.  Click on the FaceBook LIKE and SHARE buttons found on our web site to pass this message to your friends. Use your comments to encourage them to have a voice against asbestos exports.  Let us all be happy to see asbestos phased out of use in all parts of the world.  Lets call out the hypocritical governments on this matter, and demand an end to the immoral, self-serving export of asbestos-related death and disease to some of the most vulnerable people in the world.  And we start by asking the Government of Quebec and Canada not to back re-development of the Jeffery Mine for the continued export of asbestos for another 25 years by self-serving special interests!

Related References:

International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS)
British Asbestos Newsletter
Laurie Kazan-Allen, coordinator
Ika @ btinternet.com

Rideau Institute
Kathleen Ruff, Senior Human Rights Advisor
“Exporting Harm: How Canada Exports Asbestos to the Developing World”
Kruff @ bulkley.net

Canadian Medical Association
Dr. Jeff Turnbull, President
Lucie Boileau, Manager Media Relations
Lucie.Boileau @ cma.ca

The Lancet
Dr. Richard Horton, Editor
Tony Kirby, Media Relations
Tony.Kirby @ lancet.com
www.lancet.com

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