Health advocates call on Indian government to end all use of asbestos

MEDIA RELEASE: New Delhi, India, December 2, 2013

Over 300 scientists and health defenders from 36 countries condemn dangerous misinformation being disseminated in India by asbestos industry organisations

In a letter released today, over 200 scientists and over 100 labour and health organizations from 36 countries strongly condemned efforts by asbestos industry organisations to promote use of chrysotile asbestos in India. The letter, sent to Health Minister Sh Gulam Nabi Azad, Labour Minister Sh Sis Ram Ola and Environment Minister Ms Jayanthi Natarajan, noted that the asbestos industry is on a mission to enhance its profits and urged the National Government of India to put the health of the Indian population ahead of the vested interests of the asbestos industry.

“The International Chrysotile Association and the Asbestos Cement Products Manufacturers’ Association of India (ACPMA) are disseminating deadly, deceptive misinformation about chrysotile asbestos, that will cause suffering and loss of life for years to come,” said Dr. Joseph LaDou, Emeritus Chair, Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, University of California School of Medicine, USA.

“These organisations claim that scientific research shows that chrysotile asbestos can be safely used,” said Professor Luiz Augusto Facchini, Department of Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Brazil. “This claim is utterly false. The International Agency for Research on Cancer and the World Health Organization, as well as numerous other scientific organisations, have all called for an end to the use of chrysotile asbestos in order to prevent further tragic epidemics of asbestos-related diseases.”

“While a handful of scientists financed by and allied to the asbestos industry, deny the health risks of chrysotile asbestos and promote its continued used, not a single reputable scientific body in the world supports this position,” said Dr. Fernand Turcotte, Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Laval University, Québec, Canada.

In the face of the public health disaster caused by asbestos, 54 industrialized countries have banned any use of asbestos. The asbestos industry, in order to ensure its continued profits, is aggressively targeting Asian countries for sales. Just six Asian countries – China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Sri Lanka – now represent 70% of world asbestos consumption.

India imports more asbestos than any other country in the world, with imports having risen from 253,382 tons in 2006 to 473,240 tons in 2012, an increase of 186%. “These vast amounts of asbestos, being placed in homes and schools across India, are a deadly time bomb that will go on causing suffering and deaths for decades to come,” said Dr V. Murlidhar, Pneumoconiosis compensation board, TN Trust, UK and Trauma surgeon, Mumbai, India.

As a result of increased use of asbestos in Asia, asbestos experts, Dr. G.V. Le and Dr. K. Takahashi have warned: “A surge of Asbestos Related Disorders (ARD) in Asia should be anticipated in the coming decades. Asian countries should not only cease asbestos use but also prepare themselves for an impending epidemic of ARD.”

One of the ‘eminent’ speakers at the forthcoming conference, Dr David Bernstein was found by a New York court early this year to have committed potential crime-fraud by publishing a number of scientific papers that were financed and controlled by an asbestos products company.

The independence of a 2012 study conducted by the National Institute of Occupational Health titled ‘Health hazards/ environmental hazards resulting from use of Chrysotile variety of asbestos in the country’ commissioned by the Ministry of Chemicals and Petrochemicals was tarnished by the participation of the asbestos industry behind the scenes.

Commenting on the study, Dr Arthur Frank, Professor of Public Health, Drexel University, USA stated: “There are so many things wrong with this study it is hard to know where to begin. Perhaps the single most damning statement in the whole document is to be found on page 106 – All workers were using personal protective equipment device such as a piece of cloth as mask. Who could possibly believe that a piece of cloth acts as a piece of protective equipment?”

“It shows cynical indifference on the part of the asbestos industry that they are holding their event to promote a toxic product on the anniversary of the Bhopal tragedy,” said Pralhad Malvadkar, Occupational Health and Safety Centre, Mumbai. “The millions of tons of asbestos that are being placed in homes and schools in India will create thousands of innocent victims, while this irresponsible industry reaps the profits. A slow motion Bhopal is being created. It may be reliably predicted that the toll of death and disease from asbestos in India will be at least 10 to 100 times as great as that from the disaster in Bhopal. The corporate mentality that is the cause is the same in both cases”.

We call on the three government ministers to reject the discredited propaganda of a tainted, irresponsible industry and instead show leadership that respects reputable science and protection of health.

We call on the national government to adopt an enlightened policy and to support the WHO’s recommendation to end all use of asbestos in India.

CONTACT:

Mohit Gupta, Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India, oehni.del@gmail.com

Krishnendu Mukherjee, Barrister, tublumukherjee@yahoo.co.uk

Madhumita Dutta, Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India, madhudutta.new@gmail.com
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Asbestos in the Developing World

Asbestos products are marketed to developing countries as cheap and durable products. Asbestos-containing products thought of as a poor person’s building material. It is cheaper than other materials so it makes home building and even ownership more attainable to a person or a family who would not have been able to afford another kind of shelter. Furthermore, materials made with asbestos are more durable.

However, the health risks are often downplayed and are rarely promoted. People who do not know about the health risks associated with asbestos exposure and who live in poverty so they cannot afford a safer building material do not have the opportunity to protect their health. Moreover, chrysotile asbestos is said to be the ‘safer’ choice than its alternatives, which has generally unstudied consequences, and other varieties of asbestos, like amphibole, despite that the World Health Organization says that all kinds of asbestos are carcinogenic.

Why sell to the developing world?

Asbestos producing countries need to market asbestos to countries where it has not yet been banned or its consumption limited. Asbestos is currently banned in over fifty countries including the European Union, many of which are located in the developed world or are medium-income countries. Most other developed countries and increasingly more developing countries strictly control asbestos.

Developing countries are then the most accessible market to the asbestos industry. India, for instance, is one of the largest consumers of asbestos in the world.

Health consequences due to lack of laws and enforcement as well as a lack of capacity to create and enforce new laws

Sadly, many developing countries do not have laws that protect workers effectively.  Even if they do have laws, they might not be enforced, which puts people, especially those who work with asbestos, at risk of being exposed. According to the WHO, asbestos-related cancers are the leading cause of occupational cancer globally with an estimated 125 million people being exposed to asbestos each year in their workplace.

The people who work in factories that process imported raw asbestos are also in danger of asbestos exposure. If workers are impoverished, they will not speak out against working conditions for fear of losing their jobs.

And if they become ill with an asbestos-related disease such as asbestosis, they will keep working in the toxic environment because they require the income to support their families and pay for their medicine. Continuing to work with asbestos will only make them sicker, though. Eventually, they will not be able to work anymore so they will lose that income. This will mean they will not be able to afford medicine and without the income from their job they will be even more marginalized.

Mining operations have grown in developing and middle-income countries 

Before 2011, when its last asbestos mines were closed, Canada was a major exporter of asbestos globally. The main importers of Canada’s asbestos were developing countries like Brazil and India. These countries are still importing asbestos today from producers like Kazakhstan, Russia, Zimbabwe, and China whose asbestos mines still operate today.

While the closing of the Canadian asbestos mines were a win for the anti-asbestos movement here, other asbestos-producing countries benefitted financially from the move by picking up where the Canadian asbestos industry left off.

Not Worth The Risk

The asbestos industry has a great financial interest in continuing the mining and processing of the mineral. Advocacy groups against asbestos argue that this is why asbestos has still not yet been banned in many countries. Even in Canada and the United States asbestos is not banned outright, just controlled.

Even though asbestos is fireproof and has high tensile strength, it is not worth using (even with precautions) because it is like poison and has deadly consequences. When these consequences are ignored or downplayed, though, some only see asbestos’ profit-making ability.

Resources:

CBC The National. (2010). Canada’s Ugly Secret. Retrieved July 2013 from http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/indepthanalysis/story/2010/06/28/national-asbestos.html.

CBC News. (2011). Asbestos Mining Stop For The First Time In 150 Years. Retireved July 2013 from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/11/24/asbestos-shutdown.html.

Lemen, Richard A. (ND). Smoke and Mirrors: Chrysotile Asbestos Is Good For You – Illusion And Confusion But Not Fact. Retrieved July 2013 from http://worldasbestosreport.org/articles/iatb/page16-20.pdf.

McCulloch J. and Tweedale G. (2009). Defending the Indefensible, The Global Asbestos Industry and its Fight for Survival. Oxford University Press.

World Health Organization. (2006). Elimination of Asbestos-Related Diseases. Retrieved July from http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2006/WHO_SDE_OEH_06.03_eng.pdf.