A multinational group of doctors and other health care professionals has released a statement condemning world leaders for their unwillingness to ban the mining, manufacture and sale of asbestos in spite of the consensus among researchers that no safe level of exposure to the carcinogenic mineral exists. The statement, released in the most recent edition of Environmental Health Perspectives, also says that the continued global commercial use of asbestos is a consequence of a tacit understanding between the mining industry and numerous national and local policymakers.

Dozens of nations have already enacted prohibitions on the manufacture of asbestos-containing materials. However, Canada is one of the few major holdouts among industrialized nations. Recently, Canadian government officials approved a loan package to two major chrysotile asbestos mines in Quebec in order to support the ailing industry and preserve jobs in the small mining towns less than an hour north of the US border. The government health agency released a report that asbestos does not pose a health hazard if it is undisturbed or "bound in a compound".

The statement published in Environmental Health Perspectives disagrees with the government's assessment. The doctors' response to Canadian reports that chrysotile asbestos may be less dangerous than other varieties of the mineral is that such conclusions "have not been substantiated". The statement also says that decades of clinical studies and experiments have shown that chrysotile is no safer than any other form of the mineral and calls the idea of safe, controlled use the substance "a fallacy".

Many of the contributors to the piece also signed off on a letter sent to Quebec Health Minister Dr. Yves Bolduc last month. The letter criticized the government's plan to offer a loan guarantee to the remaining asbestos mines totaling over $50 million. The loan would allow the mine to restart operations on and underground facility that would remove the chrysotile ore, process it and export it to factories and shipyards in underdeveloped nations, including India, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

The doctors' statement also condemned the export of the dangerous materials, since these countries often do not have the strict environmental regulations and worker safety laws that are in place in most developed nations. They said that workers in facilities that use Canadian asbestos handle the toxic substance with few safeguards to protect themselves from "adverse health effects". The statement and the sentiments behind it have gained the support of many of the country's health care organizations, including the Canadian Cancer Society and the Canadian Medical Association.

Since the turn of the twentieth century, asbestos had been in wide use as a material for fireproofing and insulation. Many of the studies mentioned in the statement that tied asbestos exposure to lung disease were released during the late 1970s and early 1980s. When the evidence tying asbestos to forms of cancer became overwhelming, many of the mines that extracted the mineral shut down, including some in other parts of Canada. Despite the worldwide production decline, thousands of people still die from asbestos-related diseases every year.

(Mesothelioma Web, with informations from The Globe and Mail and CBC, 07/07/2010)