For the first time in Ukraine, on March 29, a public open debate was held in Kiev to discuss various aspects of asbestos production and use in Ukraine, including the severe health problems caused by chrysotile asbestos, and possible ways to tackle the problem of asbestos use and production. The conference resulted in a common resolution, available in English, Russian and Ukrainian.
The conference was organized together with NGO MAMA-86 and was hosted in the Institute for Occupational Health of Ukraine on the 29th of March 2012.
In the opening session, among other welcome speeches, representatives from the Delegation of the European Union and the Embassy of Sweden highlighted the importance of the issue and shared the lessons learned in the EU, concluding that EU countries should have acted earlier to impose a ban of asbestos and that the cost of inaction and suffering of people are enormous.
During the session "Rotterdam Convention as tool for chemical management in Ukraine" Alexander Mangwiro from the Secretariat of the Rotterdam Convention explained the prior informed consent and informed about the fact that listing chrysotile asbestos under Annex III of the Rotterdam Convention does not imply a ban, but only is an agreement to exchange information. However, this is often misunderstood by representatives from EECCA region governments and agencies. Ukrainian representatives of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources as well as from the Ministry of Health said that in their interpretation, the listing of chrysotile asbestos on the PIC list means a ban, and this explained why Ukraine opposed the listing at the last Conference of the Parties.
The session "Use and production of chrysotile asbestos in Ukraine" provided information about the nature and scale of asbestos production and use in Ukraine, EECCA region and the lessons learned in the EU. WECF partners MAMA-86 and BIOM presented the findings of their inventories on asbestos in Ukraine (download here) and Kyrgyzstan (download here). The Ukrainian Chrysotile Association gave figures about the Ukrainian asbestos production, and the NGO EcoPravo-Khariv gave insights on the legislative measures in Ukraine. WECF presented the lessons learned and the high cost of inaction in the EU.
Three scientists of the Ukrainian Institute for Occupational Health presented their findings in the session "Asbestos and asbestos related diseases". Their findings were questioned by the following speaker Dr. Rokho Kim from WHO Regional Office for Europe, showing the scientific findings of health studies of WHO, IARC and ILO, as well as from other scientists. Asbestos related diseases are the most studied topic in epidemiology worldwide, proving that all types of asbestos cause various forms of cancer, mesothelioma and asbestosis, that there is no safety threshold level, and the best way to eliminate asbestos related diseases is to ban all uses of asbestos. It is strange that not one case of mesothelioma cancer in Ukraine as been traced back to asbestos exposure, whereas in all countries of the world, the main cause of this cancer is exposure to (chrysotile) asbestos. One of the conference participants, a lawyer, presented one of his cases, of a worker from the port area on the Black Sea, who is dying of mesothelioma and is suing his employer on this issue. There are apparently hundreds of cases of mesothelioma in Ukraine, except that they are not being related to asbestos exposure.
Download the presentation of Dr. Rokho Kim here
The conference closed with the development of national recommendations to the Government of Ukraine and a call for action that includes the following points:
Apply the principle of substitution, and actively promote development and use of safer substitutes to asbestos. Any new substitutes being developed should also be tested on their health effects according to the national and international screening processes.
Develop legislation to improve the labour conditions of workers exposed to asbestos, as well as the general public:
Protect workers and citizens from exposure to asbestos at the highest level, as recommended by WHO and ILO.
Assure safe handling of asbestos containing waste during the asbestos removal process.
Apply the principle of “right to know“ and promote awareness raising on the potent carcenogenic features of asbestos. Provide for transparency through access to information and raising awareness on all aspects of the asbestos problem. These activities should be conducted in accordance with the principles of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters:
Inform workers and users on the need of highest protective gear including indepedent oxygen supply when dealing with asbestos and asbestos waste.
Support non governmental organisations (NGOs), in education, awareness raising and information provision on harmful substances and the role of chemical conventions (Rotterdam, Stockholm, Basel conventions) in assuring elimination of harmful substances where appropriate with support of scientific experts.
Contribute to creation in higher educational establishments of new specialities for preparation of specialists in area of chemical safety.
Provide information to the population on the dangers of asbestos, in addition to other harmful subtstances, including information campaigns, warning labels on products etc.
Organize an annual national workshop on chemicals safety.
Request from the chrysotile asbestos industry a comprehensive report on their risk management systems in place comprising measures for protection of the health of workers and the residents living in the vicinityof the asbestos plants. The report and its review should be made publicly available.
Establishment of a national programme for elimination of asbestos-related diseases by 2015, according to the recommendations of the WHOand the ILO and taking into account the specific situations of the country. This includes among others:
Development of a national asbestos profile in Ukraine.
Establish a working group on identification of the most vulnerable groups of the population and asbestos waste sites.
We recommend the Government to support exchange of independent research and international scientific experience including reporting on the potential health impacts of asbestos exposure in the Ukraine in cooperation with IARC, ILO and WHO.
We recommend the Government to take immediate provide information about adequate risk management measures to everybody. Listing of chrysotile asbestos in Annex III will assure that importing countries will have this information available.
We suggest that the Government considers the suitability of including chrysotile asbestos in Annex III of the Rotterdam Convention taking into account sound scientific information, such as from CRC. Ukraine should play a leading role in the process of listing of chrysotile asbestos.
For more information contact: Alexandra.caterbow@wecf.eu and Olga Tsygulova, tsygulyova@mama-86.org.ua
http://www.wecf.eu/english/articles/2012/03/ukraine-asbestos-conference-march.php
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Rally & protests against proposed asbestos cement roofing sheet factory at Naagaon-Lebidi, Sohella Block, Bargarh district, Odisha
May 22, 2012About 500 people, including women and children, participated in protest demonstrations against the proposed Asbestos Cement Sheet factory at Naagaon-Lebidi villages of Sohella Block in Bargarh district of Odisha, India.
The people living in the area have been resisting the company (Vishwakarma Roofings) since the very beginning day of the Environment Public Hearing day last year September. Initially as more than 68 people from the 80 participants resisted and went against the company in the hearing itself. The company representative said that they would not proceed with their plan to set up an asbestos cement sheet factory, as the people are against asbestos. The project remained dormant for about half a year, but last month, the company started to put up fencing and commence some construction work. Seeing the progress, people of the nearby villages were getting angry at the district administration - how they are allowing such a nuisance and public health hazardous company in the populated area, where there are more than 10 villages within a 2 kilometer radius, including water bodies, schools, agricultural fields and a Central Government food Warehouse.
So people called for a demonstration and agitation against the company's proceedings and today they gathered by the side of the National Highway 6, at Dus Mile Chowk, about 7 km.s away from Sohela Block. After holding a public meeting, they rallied against the company, walking to the project site, where the company has procured about 18 acres of land and has started its work. The people took down all the wire, poles and burnt a temporary hut, made up of wood. They also warned the company that any future activity to construct the asbestos factory will face the same consequence; they will be shattered to ground.
In the mean time the company has been spending a huge amount of to try to buy support.
The resistance to the asbestos company is on rise in the entire area, as more and more people are coming to know about the mass hazardous subject.
The company has an initial budget of INR 30,00,00,000/- and was supposed to expand after its initial startup. It already has 3 factories and has been importing asbestos from Canada to those factories in other parts of the nation.
It is observed that already there are cancer related deaths increasing across the region due to increased pesticide usage for the hybrid paddy crops and now if the asbestos factory goes ahead, it will definitely increase the numbers of mesothelioma and asbestosis cases.
Amitabh Patra
amitabhpatra@gmail.com
Friday, May 11, 2012
The long, lethal shadow of asbestos
BOSTON – As anyone in the US with a television or Internet connection probably knows, lawyers want you if you've been exposed to asbestos, and they're paying to get you.
At one point earlier this year, 15 of the 100 most expensive keyword search phrases for click-through ads on Google contained the word "mesothelioma", the deadly cancer caused by asbestos exposure. The single most expensive phrase, online marketing firm SpyFu reported, was "Florida mesothelioma lawyers," at $177.74 per click.
The hard sell reflects a troubling truth: Half a century after the first wave of lawsuits were filed for illnesses linked to exposure to asbestos and 40 years after new regulation sharply curtailed use of the insulating and fire-resistant mineral, the asbestos-litigation business is booming.
Some of the country's biggest and best-known law firms -- many of them handling asbestos cases almost exclusively -- say the number of lawsuits filed annually, after falling off from a peak, has picked up in recent years. More important, they say, is that payouts for plaintiffs who win their cases have soared.
"It's easy to see why they're buying time on CNN and the like. All you need to get is a couple of claims in to make that commercial buy worth the money," says Marc Mayerson, a litigator with the Orrick law firm in Washington and a professor of insurance law at George Washington University, who has represented defendants in asbestos-related cases since the 1980s.
No central registry keeps track of asbestos lawsuits filed yearly or their outcomes. A tabulation of jury verdicts and settlements, based on an average of all asbestos-related lawsuits reported in Westlaw Journal Asbestos, a Thomson Reuters publication, found that the average award was $6.3-million in 2009, $17.6-million in 2010 and $10.5-million in 2011 -- amounts much greater than what lawyers say was the norm more than a decade earlier.
Clearly, mesothelioma and other asbestos-related payouts persist at levels companies and their insurers never expected. Insurers have been adding hundreds of millions of dollars to their asbestos-claim reserves. Travelers Cos, in its annual report for 2011, echoed its peers when it cited a "high degree of uncertainty with respect to future exposure from asbestos claims".
Meanwhile, the dozens of trusts set up by companies forced into bankruptcy by asbestos liabilities are facing such heavy claims that many are paying only a few cents on the dollar. Some have had to suspend settlements. That has created inequality among victims.
UNEXPECTED TARGETS
Some doctors and lawyers attribute the recent rise in asbestos suits to the unexpected emergence of "asbestos wives and daughters," women exposed to the mineral by male relatives who worked in asbestos-heavy industries.
David Sugarbaker, a thoracic surgeon at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston who is highly regarded among mesothelioma patient groups, says he's been seeing more women among new patients every year, but "nobody has been able to quite pin it down".
No hard data show that the incidence of mesothelioma among women has risen significantly. Indeed, the incidence of the disease overall remained largely flat at about 1 person per 100 000 from 1980 to 2008, while the rate for women held steady at roughly one-sixth that of men, according to the National Cancer Institute.
No matter who is doing the suing, lawyers say plaintiffs are increasingly targeting a new set of deep-pocketed "tertiary defendants" -- companies that used asbestos products manufactured by others or were otherwise indirectly linked to asbestos. Such companies can now "find themselves in the midst of a lawsuit where the jury verdicts in the plaintiff-favorable jurisdictions are probably averaging $15 million to $25 million each," Orrick's Mayerson says.
Nearly everyone involved in asbestos litigation agrees on one dismaying fact: Most plaintiffs today are sick.
About a decade ago, "unimpaired" plaintiffs -- people who had some asbestos exposure but weren't sick and had no evidence they were getting sick -- accounted for "literally hundreds of thousands of claims," says Mike Angelides, managing partner of the Simmons Law Firm, which by its own estimate accounts for 20% of all asbestos-related lawsuits filed in the US every year.
Matt Bergman, a Seattle attorney who specializes in asbestos litigation, says the number of lawsuits probably peaked in 2005, when he estimates 16 000 cases were filed, most from people without any illness.
As courts began to take a dim view of such suits, lawyers focused on sick plaintiffs. Now, Bergman says, only about 2 000 new cases are filed each year, most of them to do with mesothelioma. "I think the system works best when the people who are bringing the cases are the people suffering the most," he says.
The Institute for Legal Reform, an arm of the US Chamber of Commerce that has been a vehement critic of asbestos litigation, recognizes the shift. In recent years, "there were more cases with more people that were more severely impaired, and the numbers on those claims went up," says Lisa Rickard, president of the institute.
Angelides says his firm estimates the number of new cases filed a year at around 1 800, way down from the peak but up from more recent years. "Everybody wishes these claims would go down," he says, "but it's not time yet."
DANGEROUS HUGS
Mesothelioma is a particularly lethal cancer. It arises in the delicate tissue that lines body cavities, most often around the lungs, but also in the abdomen and elsewhere.
Years of research have shown that exposure to asbestos -- defined roughly as two weeks of constant contact, usually in the air in a workplace -- is a primary cause of mesothelioma. (Exposure also causes asbestosis, a chronic, potentially life-shortening lung disease.)
Once exposed, a person has a 1-in-20 chance of developing mesothelioma. The average patient is dead within two years of diagnosis, and more than 90% are dead within five years, according to the National Cancer Institute.
The reason people who were exposed in the 1960s and 1970s are still being diagnosed is mesothelioma's long latency period -- the time between exposure and manifestation of disease -- of between 30 and 50 years. Thus people who worked in tainted industrial settings in the 1960s are still getting ill, as are some family members.
Heather Von St. James, a resident of St. Paul, Minnesota, in her early 40s, is an asbestos daughter.
Many nights while growing up, she says, she greeted her father with a hug at the door when he returned home from his job sanding drywall, a fine white dust powdering his jacket. She often put on that jacket before running outside to feed her pet rabbits.
In 2005, just after the birth of her daughter, she was diagnosed with mesothelioma. She immediately remembered those lawyers' TV ads she had seen late at night. "I called them at 1 o'clock in the morning when I got the diagnosis because I thought, 'I've got nothing to lose'," she says.
To fight her disease, she had to have a lung removed. That left her chronically weak and easily fatigued, unable to care for her daughter or continue working as a hair stylist and salon owner. She considers herself lucky, compared to other mesothelioma victims, but hesitates to describe herself as "cured."
The court that heard her lawsuit estimated that the disability caused by her mesothelioma cost her more than $5-million in lost lifetime earnings. "We didn't get $5-million. It can never replace what I lost," says St. James, who is bound by confidentiality agreements not to disclose whom she sued or the precise amount she received. Court records indicate that 3M Co was a defendant -- not one closely associated with the decades-long morass of asbestos litigation.
3M did not respond to a request for comment.
LIKE "DEATH AND TAXES"
Asbestos -- actually a family of half a dozen fibrous minerals -- has been valued since Roman times for its heat-resistant properties. For much of the 20th century it pervaded construction sites, ship and rail yards, and many industrial settings. Canada, Russia and South Africa have been major producers, as was the US.
Concerns about the health risks of asbestos exposure were raised as early as the 1920s. In a September 1958 memo that plaintiffs lawyers are wont to cite, a National Gypsum executive wrote: "We know that you will never lose sight of the fact that perhaps the greatest hazard in your plant is with men handling asbestos. Because just as certain as death and taxes is the fact that if you inhale asbestos dust you get asbestosis."
The first asbestos-related personal-injury claims popped up in federal courts in the 1960s, but asbestos use continued. According to the US Geological Survey, consumption of asbestos in the US peaked in 1973 at 803 000 tons, out of global production of around 4.2-million tons.
Within a few years, mounting litigation, as well as scientific evidence linking asbestos to disease, prompted new government and industry regulations on safe handling and use of the mineral. Since 1973, according to the the US Geological Survey, US consumption has fallen 99.9%, though global use is down only around 50%.
In the ensuing decades, asbestos litigation overwhelmed one company after another. By government estimates, about 100 companies have been forced into bankruptcy proceedings because of asbestos liabilities -- including construction-materials and industrial heavyweights such as Johns Manville (now a part of Berkshire Hathaway), USG and Owens Corning.
The US Bankruptcy Code, amended specifically for the purpose, allows a company to put current and future asbestos liabilities in a trust, fund the trust with certain assets, and walk away to start fresh. Trust administrators determine whether a claim is valid and pay out accordingly. Their decisions can be appealed, but generally, trust claims are more open-and-shut than court litigation.
Each trust values claims differently. The Johns Manville trust values mesothelioma at $350 000, while the Owens Corning trust values it at $215 000, says Steve Kazan, managing principal at Kazan, McClain, Lyons, Greenwood & Harley in Illinois, who litigated his first asbestos case in 1974 and has kept at it since. None of the trusts, lawyers say, come close to paying what the courts do.
The problem for the trusts -- and for claimants -- is that as claims persist, many of the trusts have to pay out cents on the dollar for each valid claim in order to save for future claims.
Take the example of the Johns Manville trust. In the 23 years since it started, the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust has received more than 878 000 claims -- 10 times the number initially predicted -- and made payments nearing $4.23-billion. The Manville trust's most recent filing with the US Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan shows claims rose 57% in the first nine months of 2011 from a year earlier, to 27 300. Over that time the trust's assets fell more than 12%, to $925.6-million.
As a result, the trust is now paying out approved claims at a rate of 7.5c on the dollar. A person with an approved $100 000 claim would receive $7 500.
The USG trust cut its payout rate to 35c on the dollar in April 2010 and lowered it again to 30c in November 2010. The NGC Bodily Injury Trust, which handles National Gypsum claims, warned last November that claim filings were running much higher than expected and cut payments to 18c on the dollar.
Last January, the C.E. Thurston & Sons Asbestos Trust suspended all new settlement offers while it recomputed how much it can afford to pay while retaining enough for the future, the trust said on its website.
Reuters sought comment by phone or email from trustees or lawyers for half a dozen asbestos trusts; none responded.
THE INSURERS PAY
Unlike the trusts, the insurance industry thought it had largely solved its asbestos problem through big increases to reserves 10 years ago. It misjudged. "All these insurance companies have dedicated asbestos units, and they're staffed and they're busy," says Larry Reback, an insurance broker with Integro in San Francisco.
Last year, when insurers AIG and The Hartford announced additions of $1.3-billion and $290-million, respectively, to their asbestos reserves, the companies blamed tertiary defendants that never anticipated litigation and now are being sued. AIG and Hartford have repeatedly declined to comment on the additions to their reserves.
Major oil companies are on the list, as people who were working decades ago challenge what the companies knew about asbestos safety at the time. Automakers are being hit with asbestos lawsuits, too, largely related to the asbestos lining in many vehicle brakes. Just this month a federal appellate court said lawsuits could proceed against drugmaker Pfizer Inc over asbestos-linked materials a subsidiary made a generation ago. "We strongly dispute" those lawsuits, Pfizer said.
In February, Travelers said it put $175-million into its asbestos-claim reserves in 2011, up 25% from 2010, citing more litigation and larger payouts because of those lawsuits. While announcing an increase in its own reserves, MetLife said in August that it saw asbestos-related claims rise 11% in the first half of the year after dropping steadily from 2003 through 2010.
In 2009, A.M. Best, the major rater of insurers, raised its estimate of future industry asbestos liabilities to $75-billion from $65-billion. The number may rise again in the next year, mainly because of mesothelioma claims, says Brian O'Larte, an A.M. Best analyst in New Jersey. All told, by its assessment, the industry is about 4% underfunded for the $75-billion in liabilities it faces.
Insurers keep assuming, mistakenly, that liabilities will taper, O'Larte says. "Every time they do a ground-up study, they say, 'We got it right this time'." he says.
"We don't assume that."
Reuters, 11th May 2012
http://www.miningweekly.com/article/the-long-lethal-shadow-of-asbestos-2012-05-11
At one point earlier this year, 15 of the 100 most expensive keyword search phrases for click-through ads on Google contained the word "mesothelioma", the deadly cancer caused by asbestos exposure. The single most expensive phrase, online marketing firm SpyFu reported, was "Florida mesothelioma lawyers," at $177.74 per click.
The hard sell reflects a troubling truth: Half a century after the first wave of lawsuits were filed for illnesses linked to exposure to asbestos and 40 years after new regulation sharply curtailed use of the insulating and fire-resistant mineral, the asbestos-litigation business is booming.
Some of the country's biggest and best-known law firms -- many of them handling asbestos cases almost exclusively -- say the number of lawsuits filed annually, after falling off from a peak, has picked up in recent years. More important, they say, is that payouts for plaintiffs who win their cases have soared.
"It's easy to see why they're buying time on CNN and the like. All you need to get is a couple of claims in to make that commercial buy worth the money," says Marc Mayerson, a litigator with the Orrick law firm in Washington and a professor of insurance law at George Washington University, who has represented defendants in asbestos-related cases since the 1980s.
No central registry keeps track of asbestos lawsuits filed yearly or their outcomes. A tabulation of jury verdicts and settlements, based on an average of all asbestos-related lawsuits reported in Westlaw Journal Asbestos, a Thomson Reuters publication, found that the average award was $6.3-million in 2009, $17.6-million in 2010 and $10.5-million in 2011 -- amounts much greater than what lawyers say was the norm more than a decade earlier.
Clearly, mesothelioma and other asbestos-related payouts persist at levels companies and their insurers never expected. Insurers have been adding hundreds of millions of dollars to their asbestos-claim reserves. Travelers Cos, in its annual report for 2011, echoed its peers when it cited a "high degree of uncertainty with respect to future exposure from asbestos claims".
Meanwhile, the dozens of trusts set up by companies forced into bankruptcy by asbestos liabilities are facing such heavy claims that many are paying only a few cents on the dollar. Some have had to suspend settlements. That has created inequality among victims.
UNEXPECTED TARGETS
Some doctors and lawyers attribute the recent rise in asbestos suits to the unexpected emergence of "asbestos wives and daughters," women exposed to the mineral by male relatives who worked in asbestos-heavy industries.
David Sugarbaker, a thoracic surgeon at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston who is highly regarded among mesothelioma patient groups, says he's been seeing more women among new patients every year, but "nobody has been able to quite pin it down".
No hard data show that the incidence of mesothelioma among women has risen significantly. Indeed, the incidence of the disease overall remained largely flat at about 1 person per 100 000 from 1980 to 2008, while the rate for women held steady at roughly one-sixth that of men, according to the National Cancer Institute.
No matter who is doing the suing, lawyers say plaintiffs are increasingly targeting a new set of deep-pocketed "tertiary defendants" -- companies that used asbestos products manufactured by others or were otherwise indirectly linked to asbestos. Such companies can now "find themselves in the midst of a lawsuit where the jury verdicts in the plaintiff-favorable jurisdictions are probably averaging $15 million to $25 million each," Orrick's Mayerson says.
Nearly everyone involved in asbestos litigation agrees on one dismaying fact: Most plaintiffs today are sick.
About a decade ago, "unimpaired" plaintiffs -- people who had some asbestos exposure but weren't sick and had no evidence they were getting sick -- accounted for "literally hundreds of thousands of claims," says Mike Angelides, managing partner of the Simmons Law Firm, which by its own estimate accounts for 20% of all asbestos-related lawsuits filed in the US every year.
Matt Bergman, a Seattle attorney who specializes in asbestos litigation, says the number of lawsuits probably peaked in 2005, when he estimates 16 000 cases were filed, most from people without any illness.
As courts began to take a dim view of such suits, lawyers focused on sick plaintiffs. Now, Bergman says, only about 2 000 new cases are filed each year, most of them to do with mesothelioma. "I think the system works best when the people who are bringing the cases are the people suffering the most," he says.
The Institute for Legal Reform, an arm of the US Chamber of Commerce that has been a vehement critic of asbestos litigation, recognizes the shift. In recent years, "there were more cases with more people that were more severely impaired, and the numbers on those claims went up," says Lisa Rickard, president of the institute.
Angelides says his firm estimates the number of new cases filed a year at around 1 800, way down from the peak but up from more recent years. "Everybody wishes these claims would go down," he says, "but it's not time yet."
DANGEROUS HUGS
Mesothelioma is a particularly lethal cancer. It arises in the delicate tissue that lines body cavities, most often around the lungs, but also in the abdomen and elsewhere.
Years of research have shown that exposure to asbestos -- defined roughly as two weeks of constant contact, usually in the air in a workplace -- is a primary cause of mesothelioma. (Exposure also causes asbestosis, a chronic, potentially life-shortening lung disease.)
Once exposed, a person has a 1-in-20 chance of developing mesothelioma. The average patient is dead within two years of diagnosis, and more than 90% are dead within five years, according to the National Cancer Institute.
The reason people who were exposed in the 1960s and 1970s are still being diagnosed is mesothelioma's long latency period -- the time between exposure and manifestation of disease -- of between 30 and 50 years. Thus people who worked in tainted industrial settings in the 1960s are still getting ill, as are some family members.
Heather Von St. James, a resident of St. Paul, Minnesota, in her early 40s, is an asbestos daughter.
Many nights while growing up, she says, she greeted her father with a hug at the door when he returned home from his job sanding drywall, a fine white dust powdering his jacket. She often put on that jacket before running outside to feed her pet rabbits.
In 2005, just after the birth of her daughter, she was diagnosed with mesothelioma. She immediately remembered those lawyers' TV ads she had seen late at night. "I called them at 1 o'clock in the morning when I got the diagnosis because I thought, 'I've got nothing to lose'," she says.
To fight her disease, she had to have a lung removed. That left her chronically weak and easily fatigued, unable to care for her daughter or continue working as a hair stylist and salon owner. She considers herself lucky, compared to other mesothelioma victims, but hesitates to describe herself as "cured."
The court that heard her lawsuit estimated that the disability caused by her mesothelioma cost her more than $5-million in lost lifetime earnings. "We didn't get $5-million. It can never replace what I lost," says St. James, who is bound by confidentiality agreements not to disclose whom she sued or the precise amount she received. Court records indicate that 3M Co was a defendant -- not one closely associated with the decades-long morass of asbestos litigation.
3M did not respond to a request for comment.
LIKE "DEATH AND TAXES"
Asbestos -- actually a family of half a dozen fibrous minerals -- has been valued since Roman times for its heat-resistant properties. For much of the 20th century it pervaded construction sites, ship and rail yards, and many industrial settings. Canada, Russia and South Africa have been major producers, as was the US.
Concerns about the health risks of asbestos exposure were raised as early as the 1920s. In a September 1958 memo that plaintiffs lawyers are wont to cite, a National Gypsum executive wrote: "We know that you will never lose sight of the fact that perhaps the greatest hazard in your plant is with men handling asbestos. Because just as certain as death and taxes is the fact that if you inhale asbestos dust you get asbestosis."
The first asbestos-related personal-injury claims popped up in federal courts in the 1960s, but asbestos use continued. According to the US Geological Survey, consumption of asbestos in the US peaked in 1973 at 803 000 tons, out of global production of around 4.2-million tons.
Within a few years, mounting litigation, as well as scientific evidence linking asbestos to disease, prompted new government and industry regulations on safe handling and use of the mineral. Since 1973, according to the the US Geological Survey, US consumption has fallen 99.9%, though global use is down only around 50%.
In the ensuing decades, asbestos litigation overwhelmed one company after another. By government estimates, about 100 companies have been forced into bankruptcy proceedings because of asbestos liabilities -- including construction-materials and industrial heavyweights such as Johns Manville (now a part of Berkshire Hathaway), USG and Owens Corning.
The US Bankruptcy Code, amended specifically for the purpose, allows a company to put current and future asbestos liabilities in a trust, fund the trust with certain assets, and walk away to start fresh. Trust administrators determine whether a claim is valid and pay out accordingly. Their decisions can be appealed, but generally, trust claims are more open-and-shut than court litigation.
Each trust values claims differently. The Johns Manville trust values mesothelioma at $350 000, while the Owens Corning trust values it at $215 000, says Steve Kazan, managing principal at Kazan, McClain, Lyons, Greenwood & Harley in Illinois, who litigated his first asbestos case in 1974 and has kept at it since. None of the trusts, lawyers say, come close to paying what the courts do.
The problem for the trusts -- and for claimants -- is that as claims persist, many of the trusts have to pay out cents on the dollar for each valid claim in order to save for future claims.
Take the example of the Johns Manville trust. In the 23 years since it started, the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust has received more than 878 000 claims -- 10 times the number initially predicted -- and made payments nearing $4.23-billion. The Manville trust's most recent filing with the US Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan shows claims rose 57% in the first nine months of 2011 from a year earlier, to 27 300. Over that time the trust's assets fell more than 12%, to $925.6-million.
As a result, the trust is now paying out approved claims at a rate of 7.5c on the dollar. A person with an approved $100 000 claim would receive $7 500.
The USG trust cut its payout rate to 35c on the dollar in April 2010 and lowered it again to 30c in November 2010. The NGC Bodily Injury Trust, which handles National Gypsum claims, warned last November that claim filings were running much higher than expected and cut payments to 18c on the dollar.
Last January, the C.E. Thurston & Sons Asbestos Trust suspended all new settlement offers while it recomputed how much it can afford to pay while retaining enough for the future, the trust said on its website.
Reuters sought comment by phone or email from trustees or lawyers for half a dozen asbestos trusts; none responded.
THE INSURERS PAY
Unlike the trusts, the insurance industry thought it had largely solved its asbestos problem through big increases to reserves 10 years ago. It misjudged. "All these insurance companies have dedicated asbestos units, and they're staffed and they're busy," says Larry Reback, an insurance broker with Integro in San Francisco.
Last year, when insurers AIG and The Hartford announced additions of $1.3-billion and $290-million, respectively, to their asbestos reserves, the companies blamed tertiary defendants that never anticipated litigation and now are being sued. AIG and Hartford have repeatedly declined to comment on the additions to their reserves.
Major oil companies are on the list, as people who were working decades ago challenge what the companies knew about asbestos safety at the time. Automakers are being hit with asbestos lawsuits, too, largely related to the asbestos lining in many vehicle brakes. Just this month a federal appellate court said lawsuits could proceed against drugmaker Pfizer Inc over asbestos-linked materials a subsidiary made a generation ago. "We strongly dispute" those lawsuits, Pfizer said.
In February, Travelers said it put $175-million into its asbestos-claim reserves in 2011, up 25% from 2010, citing more litigation and larger payouts because of those lawsuits. While announcing an increase in its own reserves, MetLife said in August that it saw asbestos-related claims rise 11% in the first half of the year after dropping steadily from 2003 through 2010.
In 2009, A.M. Best, the major rater of insurers, raised its estimate of future industry asbestos liabilities to $75-billion from $65-billion. The number may rise again in the next year, mainly because of mesothelioma claims, says Brian O'Larte, an A.M. Best analyst in New Jersey. All told, by its assessment, the industry is about 4% underfunded for the $75-billion in liabilities it faces.
Insurers keep assuming, mistakenly, that liabilities will taper, O'Larte says. "Every time they do a ground-up study, they say, 'We got it right this time'." he says.
"We don't assume that."
Reuters, 11th May 2012
http://www.miningweekly.com/article/the-long-lethal-shadow-of-asbestos-2012-05-11
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Asbestos Tsunami in India & China on the horizon
Note:Incestous relationship between political parties and asbestos companies in asbestos producing countries and asbestos consuming countries has compelled the government and the parliament to make public health subservient to naked lust for profit. Asbestos Tsunami in India and China cannot be stopped unless this incest is stopped. No amount of scientific opinion and humanitarian concerns hammer the frozen passivity of ruling and opposition political parties who are funded by asbestos companies. Cruelty manifests itself in myriad ways, asbestos companies are personification of cruelty.
Gopal Krishna
Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI)
ToxicsWatch Alliance
Experts Forecast Global "Catastrophe of Death and Disease" From Asbestos Use
Posted by Gary Cohn
Asia is heading for a huge jump in asbestos-related diseases in the coming decades, according to numerous scientific studies and two of the world’s most prominent experts on public health and asbestos exposure. Not surprisingly, the consequences are expected to be felt most severely in India and China, two emerging economies and most populous countries in the world.
“What we can expect is very predictable – an absolute catastrophe of death and disease,” Dr. Arthur Frank, chairman of environmental and occupational health at Drexel University, said in a recent interview with this reporter. He added that the coming catastrophe is “all preventable.”
“What we can expect is very predictable – an absolute catastrophe of death and disease”
- Dr. Arthur Frank, Chairman of Environmental and Occupational Health, Drexel University
Frank’s cautionary words parallel numerous scientific studies and expert predictions forecasting a surge in mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases in Asia in the coming decades. This is primarily because India, China, and other countries on the continent continue to use – or in some cases, even increase – their dependence on asbestos for cheap roofing insulation, in cement, and other widespread applications.
Another expert, Dr. Amir Attaran, a scientist, lawyer and acknowledged expert on global health issues, said that the consequences of continued heavy use of asbestos will be felt particularly hard in India, a growing nation of 1.2 billion people with few limits or controls on the use of asbestos.
“It’s a scientific failure, a clinical failure, and a social and moral failure of India. It is a failure of culture and science”
-Dr. Amir Attaran
When asked about the consequences of the country’s widespread use of asbestos, Attaran, a leader in the fight to stop exports of the material to Third World countries, quickly replied: “In disease terms, incalculable. India has no public health controls. They will pay dearly for this with an epidemic of mesothelioma.”
“It’s a scientific failure, a clinical failure, and a social and moral failure of India. It is a failure of culture and science,” Attaran added.
Asbestos and Asia
Asbestos has historically been used as cheap insulation material in construction, ships and cars. In the United States and Europe, it has been banned for most uses because of its clear-cut links to mesothelioma and other diseases, but it is still widely used in Asia and other nations because it is effective, yet relatively inexpensive. In Asia, it is used primarily for cheap roofing insulation, and in cement and power plants. The health hazard of exposure is compounded by the fact that Asian workers often toil in factories with poor ventilation.
A few Asian nations, such as Japan and South Korea, have banned asbestos, but they are the exceptions.
In recent years, numerous studies have documented the anticipated rise in mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases over the next several decades in Asia. One recent study, in the Journal of the Asian Pacific Society of Respirology, said that Asia, with its large, developing countries, currently accounts for about 64% of the world’s asbestos use. This represents a steady increase -- the continent accounted for a 33% share from 1971 to 2000, and 14% from 1920 to 1970.
Medical experts say that it generally takes people 20 to 50 years after exposure to asbestos to develop mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases. This timetable clearly forecasts that Asia’s current rate of usage is likely to lead to a huge hike in asbestos-related diseases in the coming decades.
Ken Takahashi, the lead author and acting director of the World Health Organization Collaborative Center for Occupational Health, has said that Asia can anticipate an “asbestos tsunami,” in the coming decades. In response, WHO has identified asbestos as one of the most dangerous occupational carcinogens in the world, and says there is an urgent need to stop asbestos use in order to curtail the enormous associated health damages.
An estimated 107,000 people worldwide die each year from asbestos-related diseases, a number that will continue to grow if efforts to curb its usage fail.
While already substantial, this assessment is probably low, according to leading public-health experts, as it is difficult to categorically track deaths from asbestos-related diseases in Asia because India, China and other countries do not to keep reliable data on them.
In recent years, some Asian nations, including Japan and South Korea, have banned or limited asbestos use. But in most other Asian nations, most significantly India and China, the use of asbestos has continued with little or no regulation or oversight. (This reporter got a first-hand view of the problem in the late 1990s while investigating India’s notorious shipbreaking facilities in Alang, where thousands of unprotected workers worked on large, retired vessels with high asbestos content).
shipbreaking India
Many public health experts, such as Frank of Drexel University, have called for a ban on asbestos exports to Asia. Last year, Frank led a group of 120 medical doctors and other health professionals in a campaign to stop Canada from exporting asbestos to developing nations. Canada, which has largely banned asbestos for domestic use, is the second-largest exporter of asbestos to Asia, behind only Russia.
In an appeal to Canadian medical experts, Frank and his colleagues warned that Canada is morally obligated to consider the “enormous harm to health for generations,” if the exports continue – a plea that so far has gone unheeded.
In the recent interview, Frank reiterated the urgency to stop developed nations such as Canada from exporting asbestos to the Third World, along with the need for Asian nations to ban asbestos and start using available non-lethal substitutes.
What needs to be done is very simple,” Frank told me. “They should stop using asbestos in Asia.”
However, this is unlikely to happen as long as established countries continue to chase the profits from exporting the carcinogen. “Canada is the world’s biggest hypocrite when it comes to asbestos,” said Frank. “It is taking it (asbestos) out of Parliament buildings but willing to sell it overseas.”
Next up: The hypocrisy of asbestos-exporting nations. Canada, for example, has banned the use of asbestos domestically and is scheduled to begin a $1 billion renovation project to clean its parliamentary buildings of asbestos this summer. Yet Canada remains one of the world’s biggest exporters of asbestos to the Third World.
Tags: asbestos, Asia, Canada, China, Dr. Amir Attaran, Dr. Larry Frank, Gary Cohn, India, mesothelioma
Read more: http://www.mesothelioma.com/blog/authors/gary/experts-forecast-global-catastrophe-of-death-and-disease-from-asbestos-use.htm#ixzz1swux69B0
Gopal Krishna
Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI)
ToxicsWatch Alliance
Experts Forecast Global "Catastrophe of Death and Disease" From Asbestos Use
Posted by Gary Cohn
Asia is heading for a huge jump in asbestos-related diseases in the coming decades, according to numerous scientific studies and two of the world’s most prominent experts on public health and asbestos exposure. Not surprisingly, the consequences are expected to be felt most severely in India and China, two emerging economies and most populous countries in the world.
“What we can expect is very predictable – an absolute catastrophe of death and disease,” Dr. Arthur Frank, chairman of environmental and occupational health at Drexel University, said in a recent interview with this reporter. He added that the coming catastrophe is “all preventable.”
“What we can expect is very predictable – an absolute catastrophe of death and disease”
- Dr. Arthur Frank, Chairman of Environmental and Occupational Health, Drexel University
Frank’s cautionary words parallel numerous scientific studies and expert predictions forecasting a surge in mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases in Asia in the coming decades. This is primarily because India, China, and other countries on the continent continue to use – or in some cases, even increase – their dependence on asbestos for cheap roofing insulation, in cement, and other widespread applications.
Another expert, Dr. Amir Attaran, a scientist, lawyer and acknowledged expert on global health issues, said that the consequences of continued heavy use of asbestos will be felt particularly hard in India, a growing nation of 1.2 billion people with few limits or controls on the use of asbestos.
“It’s a scientific failure, a clinical failure, and a social and moral failure of India. It is a failure of culture and science”
-Dr. Amir Attaran
When asked about the consequences of the country’s widespread use of asbestos, Attaran, a leader in the fight to stop exports of the material to Third World countries, quickly replied: “In disease terms, incalculable. India has no public health controls. They will pay dearly for this with an epidemic of mesothelioma.”
“It’s a scientific failure, a clinical failure, and a social and moral failure of India. It is a failure of culture and science,” Attaran added.
Asbestos and Asia
Asbestos has historically been used as cheap insulation material in construction, ships and cars. In the United States and Europe, it has been banned for most uses because of its clear-cut links to mesothelioma and other diseases, but it is still widely used in Asia and other nations because it is effective, yet relatively inexpensive. In Asia, it is used primarily for cheap roofing insulation, and in cement and power plants. The health hazard of exposure is compounded by the fact that Asian workers often toil in factories with poor ventilation.
A few Asian nations, such as Japan and South Korea, have banned asbestos, but they are the exceptions.
In recent years, numerous studies have documented the anticipated rise in mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases over the next several decades in Asia. One recent study, in the Journal of the Asian Pacific Society of Respirology, said that Asia, with its large, developing countries, currently accounts for about 64% of the world’s asbestos use. This represents a steady increase -- the continent accounted for a 33% share from 1971 to 2000, and 14% from 1920 to 1970.
Medical experts say that it generally takes people 20 to 50 years after exposure to asbestos to develop mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases. This timetable clearly forecasts that Asia’s current rate of usage is likely to lead to a huge hike in asbestos-related diseases in the coming decades.
Ken Takahashi, the lead author and acting director of the World Health Organization Collaborative Center for Occupational Health, has said that Asia can anticipate an “asbestos tsunami,” in the coming decades. In response, WHO has identified asbestos as one of the most dangerous occupational carcinogens in the world, and says there is an urgent need to stop asbestos use in order to curtail the enormous associated health damages.
An estimated 107,000 people worldwide die each year from asbestos-related diseases, a number that will continue to grow if efforts to curb its usage fail.
While already substantial, this assessment is probably low, according to leading public-health experts, as it is difficult to categorically track deaths from asbestos-related diseases in Asia because India, China and other countries do not to keep reliable data on them.
In recent years, some Asian nations, including Japan and South Korea, have banned or limited asbestos use. But in most other Asian nations, most significantly India and China, the use of asbestos has continued with little or no regulation or oversight. (This reporter got a first-hand view of the problem in the late 1990s while investigating India’s notorious shipbreaking facilities in Alang, where thousands of unprotected workers worked on large, retired vessels with high asbestos content).
shipbreaking India
Many public health experts, such as Frank of Drexel University, have called for a ban on asbestos exports to Asia. Last year, Frank led a group of 120 medical doctors and other health professionals in a campaign to stop Canada from exporting asbestos to developing nations. Canada, which has largely banned asbestos for domestic use, is the second-largest exporter of asbestos to Asia, behind only Russia.
In an appeal to Canadian medical experts, Frank and his colleagues warned that Canada is morally obligated to consider the “enormous harm to health for generations,” if the exports continue – a plea that so far has gone unheeded.
In the recent interview, Frank reiterated the urgency to stop developed nations such as Canada from exporting asbestos to the Third World, along with the need for Asian nations to ban asbestos and start using available non-lethal substitutes.
What needs to be done is very simple,” Frank told me. “They should stop using asbestos in Asia.”
However, this is unlikely to happen as long as established countries continue to chase the profits from exporting the carcinogen. “Canada is the world’s biggest hypocrite when it comes to asbestos,” said Frank. “It is taking it (asbestos) out of Parliament buildings but willing to sell it overseas.”
Next up: The hypocrisy of asbestos-exporting nations. Canada, for example, has banned the use of asbestos domestically and is scheduled to begin a $1 billion renovation project to clean its parliamentary buildings of asbestos this summer. Yet Canada remains one of the world’s biggest exporters of asbestos to the Third World.
Tags: asbestos, Asia, Canada, China, Dr. Amir Attaran, Dr. Larry Frank, Gary Cohn, India, mesothelioma
Read more: http://www.mesothelioma.com/blog/authors/gary/experts-forecast-global-catastrophe-of-death-and-disease-from-asbestos-use.htm#ixzz1swux69B0
Reports Focus on Indian Shipbreaking
Reports Focus on Indian Shipbreaking
Kurt Achin | New Delhi
Alang beach in India's Gujarat province is one of the world's biggest shipping graveyards, an access-restricted, mafia-controlled funerary ground for hulking steel-container vessels marooned for demolition.
Eighty percent of the world's international trade crosses the globe by ship, and each year hundreds of these massive retired freighters are physically dismantled in ocean-shoreline breaking yards.
Two reports released in New Delhi this week are renewing focus on the industry's near total lack of environmental or labor oversight, and its connection to organized crime.
According Federico Demaria, an Italian economist affiliated with New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, even gaining permission to watch shipbreaking in progress can prove extremely difficult.
"Access to Alang is not permitted for foreigners, for journalists, for researchers, for anyone who can actually find out what is going on on the ground," he says, explaining that he got a glimpse of Alang in 2009, only after posing as a scrap trader.
"You are supposed to ask permission, [and] I have been waiting for it for three years now, and I've [still] not got it."
What he did get, however, was first-hand exposure to an aspect of trade and international commerce that few ever hear about.
A surreal scene
At Alang, he says, defunct trans-oceanic vessels stand like decrepit, abandoned city skyscrapers that have washed ashore, awaiting the arrival of laborers who, armed with torches, enter the structures to manually deconstruct them.
On any given day, he says, one might see a two- or three-ton slab of steel fall to the beach below, or sometimes onto workers.
Anonymous
Critics: Gujarat shipbreakers lack rights, India, 2009.
While advocates of Indian shipbreaking say the industry recycles cheap steel into the economy, fueling development and providing jobs, critics object, citing lack of health care, adequate housing or compensation for debilitating accidents that frequently befall its labor force.
"How much do you count for a worker's life?" Demaria asks. "For example, I was not allowed to enter one ship in the Alang beach explicitly because the shipbreaker told me, 'If an accident happens, you'll be too expensive. I can't pay you.'"
Yet compensation for Indian workers, he says, is cheap. "If they [compensate their own employees for work-related injuries], they would give something like $1,000 to $2,000, which is insignificant."
A formerly regulated trade
Shipbreaking used to take place mainly in Europe, under more controlled conditions, but globalization has opened the market for unregulated operations like those in Alang, where shipping companies sell older vessels to intermediary companies that exist only on paper, who then sell the steel structures to shipbreakers.
Gopal Krishna, an Indian environmental activist, says the industry is hazardous not only to laborers, but to the entire ecosystem and people whose livelihoods depend on it.
"Most of the ships, which are 25-30 years old, are asbestos-laden. They are laden with persistent organic pollutants like PCBs, polychlorinated biphenyls; with waste oil; with ballast water," he says, none of which is managed in an environmentally sound manner.
Prying eyes of industry observers, he adds, are shielded by local mafias driving the enterprise.
"It is a source of black money in the country, one of the least acknowledged sources of black money," says Krishna. "There is collusion between the ruling party and the opposition party. Business interest, the profit motive alone, guides the political parties, which provide patronage to shipbreakers. There is no rule of law in Alang."
Demaria and Krishna warn that the industry's lack of oversight could impact the West in the form of contaminated and radioactive imports wrought of improperly treated steel.
New Delhi's failure to regulate and modernize shipbreaking, they say, will probably cause India's share of the industry to be subsumed by China's shipbreaking market within a decade.
Find this article at:
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/asia/Reports-Focus-on-Indian-Shipbreaking-147969395.html
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Lack of capacity for removal of carcinogenic asbestos materials from existing buildings & disposal of end of life asbestos materials
To
Prof. K.V. Thomas,
Union Minister of Consumer Affairs
Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs
Government of India
New Delhi
Subject-Lack of capacity for removal of carcinogenic asbestos materials from existing buildings & disposal of end of life asbestos roofing materials
Sir,
This is to draw your urgent attention towards the fact that there is no capacity and skill in the country for removal of asbestos from existing buildings and for disposal of end of life asbestos roofing materials. We have been getting requests seeking help in dealing with disposal of end of life asbestos roofing materials and for removing carcinogenic asbestos materials.
We wish to point out that there is a compelling logic emerging for pre-existing asbestos based plants to shift to non-asbestos based building materials. We submit that Union Government is publicly revealing that it does not favour new asbestos plants in the country. "The Government of India is considering the ban on use of chrysotile asbestos in India to protect the workers and the general population against primary and secondary exposure to Chrysotile form of Asbestos." It has noted that "Asbestosis is yet another occupational disease of the Lungs which is on an increase under similar circumstances warranting concerted efforts of all stake holders to evolve strategies to curb this menace". A concept paper by Union Ministry of Labour revealed this at the two-day 5th India-EU Joint Seminar on “Occupational Safety and Health” on 19th and 20th September, 2011. (Reference: http://www.labour.nic.in/lc/Background%20note.pdf).
We wish to draw your attention towards Union Environment Ministry’s Vision Statement on Environment and Human Health (Para 4.3.1) that reads: “Alternatives to asbestos may be used to the extent possible and use of asbestos may be phased out”. (Reference:http://moef.nic.in/divisions/cpoll/envhealth/visenvhealth.pdf)
We submit that Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS)'s recommendations for cleaning of premises and plants using asbestos fibres and for disposal of asbestos waste material is merely a statement of intent is not really helpful in context of impossibility of safe use of asbestos of all kinds.
We wish to draw your attention towards the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)‘s notice to the Secretaries of Ministries of Chemical Fertilizers, Environment and Forest, Health and Family Welfare, Industry and Commerce, Labour and Chief Secretaries of all the States/Union Territories in the matter of incurable asbestos related diseases on July 6, 2011. (Reference: http://nhrc.nic.in/dispArchive.asp?fno=2334)
We submit that Union Ministry of Chemicals, Government of India has rightly disassociated itself from countries like Russia and Canada on June 22, 2011 who derailed the international consensus that categorizes chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous substance under the UN’s Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade. India has taken a position that it considers chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous substance.
We submit that World Health Assembly Resolution 58.22 on cancer prevention urges Member States to pay special attention to cancers for which avoidable exposure is a factor, including exposure to chemicals at the workplace. In 2005, with Resolution 60.26, the World Health Assembly requested WHO to carry out a global campaign for the elimination of asbestos-related diseases.
We submit that the resolution of the 95th Session of the International Labour Conference of ILO in June 2006 stated, "Considering that all forms of asbestos, including chrysotile, are classified as known human carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a classification restated by the International Programme on Chemical Safety (a joint Programme of the International Labour Organization, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme), it resolves that: (a) the elimination of the future use of asbestos and the identification and proper management of asbestos currently in place are the most effective means to protect workers from asbestos exposure and to prevent future asbestos-related diseases and deaths; and (b) the Asbestos Convention, 1986 (No. 162), should not be used to provide a justification for, or endorsement of, the continued use of asbestos."
We submit that Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS)'s 'Guidelines for safe use of products containing asbestos' is outdated. There are grave concerns about asbestos exposures resulting in public health crisis world over that has compelled 55 countries to ban use of asbestos. In the absence of environmental and occupational health infrastructure in our country, the passivity of the state governments and the concerned ministries like yours appears cannot be deemed acceptable.
In view of the above, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) should be asked to re-examine the 'Recommendations for safety and health requirements relating to occupational exposure to asbestos' besides examining non-occupational exposure to asbestos and standards for asbestos related material like asbestos cement sheets, asbestos cement pressure pipes and joints, asbestos cement flat sheets, asbestos cement building boards, asbestos cement cable conduits and troughs etc.
We submit that your ministry ought to consider writing to the State Governments to save people from incurable lung diseases. There should be a moratorium on asbestos based hazardous industries. Now your ministry should take the next logical step and phase out asbestos use and take immediate steps to ban this killer fiber to save the present and future citizens of the country.
Thanking You
Yours Sincerely
Gopal Krishna
ToxicsWatch Alliance (TWA)
New Delhi
Phone: +91-11-2651781, Fax: +91-11-26517814
Mb: 9818089660
E-mail:krishna1715@gmail.com
Cc
Chairman, NHRC
Prof. K.V. Thomas,
Union Minister of Consumer Affairs
Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs
Government of India
New Delhi
Subject-Lack of capacity for removal of carcinogenic asbestos materials from existing buildings & disposal of end of life asbestos roofing materials
Sir,
This is to draw your urgent attention towards the fact that there is no capacity and skill in the country for removal of asbestos from existing buildings and for disposal of end of life asbestos roofing materials. We have been getting requests seeking help in dealing with disposal of end of life asbestos roofing materials and for removing carcinogenic asbestos materials.
We wish to point out that there is a compelling logic emerging for pre-existing asbestos based plants to shift to non-asbestos based building materials. We submit that Union Government is publicly revealing that it does not favour new asbestos plants in the country. "The Government of India is considering the ban on use of chrysotile asbestos in India to protect the workers and the general population against primary and secondary exposure to Chrysotile form of Asbestos." It has noted that "Asbestosis is yet another occupational disease of the Lungs which is on an increase under similar circumstances warranting concerted efforts of all stake holders to evolve strategies to curb this menace". A concept paper by Union Ministry of Labour revealed this at the two-day 5th India-EU Joint Seminar on “Occupational Safety and Health” on 19th and 20th September, 2011. (Reference: http://www.labour.nic.in/lc/Background%20note.pdf).
We wish to draw your attention towards Union Environment Ministry’s Vision Statement on Environment and Human Health (Para 4.3.1) that reads: “Alternatives to asbestos may be used to the extent possible and use of asbestos may be phased out”. (Reference:http://moef.nic.in/divisions/cpoll/envhealth/visenvhealth.pdf)
We submit that Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS)'s recommendations for cleaning of premises and plants using asbestos fibres and for disposal of asbestos waste material is merely a statement of intent is not really helpful in context of impossibility of safe use of asbestos of all kinds.
We wish to draw your attention towards the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)‘s notice to the Secretaries of Ministries of Chemical Fertilizers, Environment and Forest, Health and Family Welfare, Industry and Commerce, Labour and Chief Secretaries of all the States/Union Territories in the matter of incurable asbestos related diseases on July 6, 2011. (Reference: http://nhrc.nic.in/dispArchive.asp?fno=2334)
We submit that Union Ministry of Chemicals, Government of India has rightly disassociated itself from countries like Russia and Canada on June 22, 2011 who derailed the international consensus that categorizes chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous substance under the UN’s Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade. India has taken a position that it considers chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous substance.
We submit that World Health Assembly Resolution 58.22 on cancer prevention urges Member States to pay special attention to cancers for which avoidable exposure is a factor, including exposure to chemicals at the workplace. In 2005, with Resolution 60.26, the World Health Assembly requested WHO to carry out a global campaign for the elimination of asbestos-related diseases.
We submit that the resolution of the 95th Session of the International Labour Conference of ILO in June 2006 stated, "Considering that all forms of asbestos, including chrysotile, are classified as known human carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a classification restated by the International Programme on Chemical Safety (a joint Programme of the International Labour Organization, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme), it resolves that: (a) the elimination of the future use of asbestos and the identification and proper management of asbestos currently in place are the most effective means to protect workers from asbestos exposure and to prevent future asbestos-related diseases and deaths; and (b) the Asbestos Convention, 1986 (No. 162), should not be used to provide a justification for, or endorsement of, the continued use of asbestos."
We submit that Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS)'s 'Guidelines for safe use of products containing asbestos' is outdated. There are grave concerns about asbestos exposures resulting in public health crisis world over that has compelled 55 countries to ban use of asbestos. In the absence of environmental and occupational health infrastructure in our country, the passivity of the state governments and the concerned ministries like yours appears cannot be deemed acceptable.
In view of the above, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) should be asked to re-examine the 'Recommendations for safety and health requirements relating to occupational exposure to asbestos' besides examining non-occupational exposure to asbestos and standards for asbestos related material like asbestos cement sheets, asbestos cement pressure pipes and joints, asbestos cement flat sheets, asbestos cement building boards, asbestos cement cable conduits and troughs etc.
We submit that your ministry ought to consider writing to the State Governments to save people from incurable lung diseases. There should be a moratorium on asbestos based hazardous industries. Now your ministry should take the next logical step and phase out asbestos use and take immediate steps to ban this killer fiber to save the present and future citizens of the country.
Thanking You
Yours Sincerely
Gopal Krishna
ToxicsWatch Alliance (TWA)
New Delhi
Phone: +91-11-2651781, Fax: +91-11-26517814
Mb: 9818089660
E-mail:krishna1715@gmail.com
Cc
Chairman, NHRC
How Canada exports death and disease to the developing world
Even though asbestos is banned in over 50 countries, Canada continues blocking international action to control its use, financially supporting asbestos industry spin doctors and promoting the continued trade of this toxic cancer-causing substance to the developing world despite it being effectively banned in Canada.
Managing editor David Donovan reports on a nation that has become an international pariah through what some have described as its “racist” double-standards.
The full text is available here:
http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/business/how-canada-exports-death-and-disease-to-the-developing-world/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-canada-exports-death-and-disease-to-the-developing-world
IndependentAustralia.net
9 April, 2012
Managing editor David Donovan reports on a nation that has become an international pariah through what some have described as its “racist” double-standards.
The full text is available here:
http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/business/how-canada-exports-death-and-disease-to-the-developing-world/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-canada-exports-death-and-disease-to-the-developing-world
IndependentAustralia.net
9 April, 2012
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