Asbestos ban 'absolutely necessary' By ANDRÉ PICARD >From Tuesday's Globe and Mail An immediate worldwide ban on the production and use of asbestos � of which Canada is a leading producer � is "long overdue, fully justified and absolutely necessary," a leading health-research institute says. Calling asbestos an "occupational and environmental hazard of catastrophic proportions" that will ultimately cause millions of deaths, scientists at the Collegium Ramazzini say there is no justification for its continued use. "The profound tragedy of the asbestos epidemic is that all illnesses and deaths related to asbestos are entirely preventable. Safer substitutes for asbestos exist and they have been introduced successfully in many countries," they write in Tuesday's edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Asbestos has long been vilified as cancer-causing and there have been numerous calls for a ban over the years. But the position taken by the Collegium Ramazzini, based in Modena, Italy, is sure to revive the debate. The Collegium is an independent international institute that researches occupational diseases and hazards. Founded by Dr. Irving J. Selikoff, a world authority on environmental medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, it accepts no money from governments, corporations or unions. Its scientists have testified as expert witnesses for both industry and plaintiffs, earning it a reputation as unbiased. Some Canadian scientists, however, are dismissing the call for a ban. Michel Camus of the health environments and consumer safety branch of Health Canada said the Collegium's call is unjustified and irresponsible. He said the risks of chrysotile, the type of asbestos used nowadays, are grossly exaggerated and the claim that safe substitutes are available is unproven. "A distortion of the evidence might result in a useless ban and possibly increased risk," Dr. Camus writes in the same issue of the CMA Journal. Canada is the second-largest producer of asbestos in the world. A large chunk of the world's supply is mined in a single community, Asbestos, Que. Asbestos is a term applied to a number of fibrous materials popular for their nonflammability, poor heat conduction and fibrousness. It is used in construction, shipbuilding and for automobile brake pads. Asbestos is derived from two principal natural substances � chrysotile, or white asbestos; and amphibole, which includes brown asbestos and blue asbestos. (Both forms occur naturally at Asbestos, Que., but only the chrystolite is now mined.) All forms of asbestos can cause asbestosis (a debilitating lung disease), lung cancer and mesothelioma (chest tumours). Much of the debate in the CMA Journal is about the relative risks of contracting those diseases from exposure to different types of asbestos. Dr. Camus argues in the journal that research shows that chrysotile is 15 times safer than amphibole and that the lifetime risk to an asbestos miner is 1,000 times less with the product now being marketed. Dr. Joseph LaDou and his colleagues at the Collegium, however, argue that "indications that chrysotile might be less dangerous than other forms of asbestos have not been supported." Further, they say the technology and regulation required to minimize the risks are attainable in only a few highly industrialized countries. However, mining is moving increasingly to the developing world. "The commercial tactics of the asbestos industry are very similar to those of the tobacco industry," the Collegium argues. "The asbestos industry is progressively transferring its commercial activities and the health hazards to developing countries." Asbestos has been banned in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands, Finland, Germany, Italy, Belgium, France, Austria, Poland and Saudi Arabia. In a related commentary in the CMA Journal, Dr. Jack Siemiatycki of the INRS-Institut Armand-Frappier of the University of Quebec, says the call for a worldwide asbestos ban is the "latest twist in one of the most extraordinary sagas in the modern history of environmental and occupational health." He says thousands of scientific papers have been published but there is little unanimity about the risks and much controversy remaining about use of the product and substitutes. "In my opinion, the call for a ban on asbestos is, for the most part, a well-motivated, respectable and defensible position. But on balance I do not have enough confidence in the Collegium's assertions . . . to think that it is the right thing to do. Nor am I convinced it is wrong," Dr. Siemiatycki writes. What is required, he said, is an international panel of experts to try to resolve the asbestos controversy once and for all, though the Canadian researcher acknowledges that "constituting such a panel may be almost as challenging as answering the basic questions." ________________________________ Still a hero in Asbestos after all these years Trudeau helped strikers battle Duplessis, asbestos industry and the church in 1949 John Gray Monday, October 2, 2000 ASBESTOS, QUE. -- There were many in his home province who saw him through critical and even hostile eyes, but for one small and dwindling group of Quebeckers, Pierre Trudeau was a hero who could do no wrong. They are old now, and their memories slide uncertainly into other memories of half a century ago, when they and Pierre Trudeau were young and when they took on the world together. But on the essentials there is no doubt. Pierre Trudeau was one of the people who came to help when the workers of Asbestos took on the combined might of the multinational asbestos industry, the Quebec government and the Roman Catholic Church. The four-month asbestos strike in 1949 was one of the nastiest in Quebec's history of nasty strikes, and it was, as Mr. Trudeau wrote later, "a violent announcement that a new era had begun." Rosaire Drouin, 74, remembers Mr. Trudeau as part of the large group of union activists who came to Asbestos and Thetford Mines from Montreal to help the uncertain union leadership. Among the others were Jean Marchand, then a leading union militant in Quebec, and Gérard Pelletier, then a journalist with Le Devoir. Much later, both men went to Ottawa and became major figures in Mr. Trudeau's government. "The whole gang of them. We saw them often during the strike. He did a lot of good. I have pictures of him and the others somewhere. He was sort of the ambassador for the union. He explained to us our rights against Duplessis." For Mr. Drouin and the others, if there was a demon in the strike, it was Premier Maurice Duplessis. It was Mr. Duplessis who controlled the provincial police and who told the Catholic church to transfer the Archbishop of Montreal, Joseph Charbonneau, to Vancouver because he was an outspoken champion of the strike. Mr. Drouin still remembers the bitterness of the strike, of strikers throwing rocks at the scabs recruited by Johns Manville, the asbestos company, and of provincial police beating the strikers. He describes Mr. Trudeau, who was variously lawyer, economist and journalist, as "a guy who spoke well. You had to be tough to face Duplessis." Gisèle Drouin, 70, heard about Mr. Trudeau from her husband and others. Still, whatever he did in 1949, it is the later Trudeau -- a good, elegant man, well-dressed, always with a red rose on his lapel -- she adores. Her favourite prime minister, she says. He had class. Her husband smiles: "He defended the workers. He was good for Quebec and Canada. It's a long time since we've seen a good one like that." At the large pink house at the top of the street, Emile Lalonde, 74, is helping with the gardening. He remembers the young visitor to Asbestos as a man who had charisma and power. He was there when Mr. Trudeau, as prime minister, returned and visited the mine-mill cafeteria and talked about the old days of the strike. Roger Brown, 78, was slowly walking his dog. Oh sure, he remembers Mr. Trudeau. A good guy and a good prime minister. Better than the ones we have now. Most people around here have been Liberal since the strike, he said. Bertrand Perreault was washing his truck. He liked Mr. Trudeau for fighting the Duplessis regime, but criticized him for the 1970 War Measures Act. He went too far, gave too much power to the army. Roger Carbonneau, 73, is part way through his 25-kilometres-a-day walk. He doesn't remember Mr. Trudeau all that well, but he did see him a few times in those days, and remembers him as a guy who was good for the union and good for the workers. _______________________________________________ CrashList website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
