Halt To Asbestos Mining Could Successfully Leave Deadly Export From Canada Dry!

Dec. 9, 2011 - PRLog -- It is estimated that between 1968 and 1971, nearly 70 per cent per cent of all asbestos used in the UK was imported from Canada. The practice continued until the UK Asbestos (Prohibition) Regulations prohibited the import and use of crocidolite (blue asbestos) and amosite (brown asbestos), the more dangerous forms of asbestos, from the mid 1970s. A final ban on  chrysotile (white asbestos) followed in 1999.

Today, all asbestos import and use is banned in more than 40 countries around the world, including the UK, USA and all 25 European Union members. The majority of asbestos is now imported by developing countries, such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, the United Arab Emirates, Colombia, Vietnam and Iran.

However asbestos awareness to the terrible health risks of exposure by workers handling the mineral have continually been overridden by the main exporters, Canada, Russia and China. The Canadian government, has been single-minded in it’s determination to continue working directly with developing countries to support its’ own growing asbestos market, exporting some 150,000 tonnes of asbestos in 2009, and aiming to step up annual chrysotile production to around 260,000 tonnes.

However, recently it has been reported that production of the deadly mineral has been suddenly halted at the two Canadian mines as relatives of workers who died from asbestos related disease had demanded suspension of all mining activity.

Increasing serious concern over future global deaths from asbestosis diseases or the malignant and incurable mesothelioma cancer as a result of increased asbestos exports have led to estimates that mortality figures could escalate to over 10 million within the next 20 years.

Chrysotile ( white asbestos) has been recommended for inclusion in ‘Prior Informed Consent’, which was set up by the first Rotterdam Convention in 2004, an international treaty aimed to restrict the global trade in hazardous materials -  and contested each time by the Canadian government. The addition of white asbestos to the list of hazardous materials would make it more difficult for countries like Canada to export asbestos and would only be permitted to countries explicitly consenting to imports.

Despite the Canadian Medical Association repeatedly criticising it’s own government, the reading of a petition in the Canadian parliament calling for the country to ban asbestos - and even the removal of asbestos discovered inside the parliament buildings itself due to the health risks - the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not been deterred from continuing to voice his support for the asbestos industry.

However, according to the NDP opposition party, “more Canadians now die from asbestos than all other industrial causes combined”. Once the deadly asbestos fibres are inhaled, they permanently embed in the linings of the lungs or spread to the abdomen lining where they gestate for up to 50 years before the first mesothelioma or asbestosis symptoms appear. Often patients are only diagnosed at the latter, advanced stages of the disease and will only live on for another 4 to 12 months.

Latest indications are that with production ceased and stockpiles running out, Canadian asbestos may no longer have a presence in the international market in the immediate period ahead. However, it may still be too early to predict a permanent demise as asbestos industry supporters hope to restart mining activity in early 2012.

Visit http://www.asbestosvictimadvice.com for more information and advice.

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