Reuters: Asbestos kept off global list of toxic substances

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyid=2006-10-13T213706Z_01_L13246343_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENVIRONMENT-ASBESTOS.xml

Asbestos kept off global list of toxic substances

Fri Oct 13, 2006 5:38 PM ET

By Laura MacInnis

GENEVA (Reuters) - Chrysotile asbestos, a known human carcinogen, will remain off a global "watch list" of toxic substances for at least two more years after countries led by Canada blocked consensus in United Nations talks on Friday.

...

Canada, whose French-speaking Quebec province is a major asbestos producer and exporter, led opposition to its addition to the list, according to environmentalists tracking the talks.

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Canadian officials say putting chrysotile asbestos on the list would be tantamount to banning international trade in it and threaten jobs.

...

"At least 200,000 workers will be killed by asbestos disease before the proposal to list asbestos can be tabled again," said Laurie Kazan-Allen of the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat, who called the failure to act "truly tragic."

...

[katsy]

1. Ahhh, yes.

Profits over people.

[OneBlueSky]

2. can you imagine how bad things would be if corporations . . .

ruled the world? . . .

wait a minute . . . :crazy:

[Eurobabe]

3. My hubby's dad died from mesothelioma, it was awful

He got it from working in the shipyards (unprotected) as a young man. He died at 56, a horribly painful death.

Way to go Canada, et al.

[Princess Turandot]

4. My father, his two brothers and their father..

were all heat & frost insulators, i.e asbestos workers. All died from various forms of cancer between the ages of 45 and 60. My mother had cancer twice (survived both) and my older sister had a very rare form of thyroid cancer when she only 14 (also survived due to what was then experimental radioactive iodine therapy). I'm much younger than my sister; until right around the time I was born, my father would bring home his work clothes every day and my mother would wash them in her washing machine. It's hard to believe that most of the cancers weren't related.

My father was befriended by Irving Selikoff, one of the original researchers in the area of asbestos hazards when he was on a field trip backs in the '50s to a site where my father was working. (An unlikely friendship, perhaps, given that my father did not go past 8th grade, but he was a rather charming fellow.) I think that was why he stopped bringing work things home.