Banning Asbestos

Asbestos Law suits

By Archana Sarat

Isn't it time Asbestos is banned completely?

The mining, manufacture and use of asbestos leads to a variety of diseases like fibrosis, asbestosis, asbestos warts, lung cancer, Pleural plaques, diffuse pleural thickening and the most dreaded disease, 'mesothelioma'. Asbestos has been in use right from the time of ancient Greeks itself. Even Romans and Persians have used it. It was used to make lamp wicks and was also woven into the clothing worn by the slaves.

The Greeks first realized that something was wrong with asbestos. They found that the lungs of slaves who wore asbestos woven clothes became diseased. It was only in the 1900s that the medical researchers woke up to the harmful effects of asbestos. In the 1930s, the diseases caused by asbestos were identified one by one. However, mesothelioma was identified only in 1940s. England was the first country that banned the mining, use and manufacture of asbestos. After this, USA banned asbestos. Though slow in efforts, Japan too banned the mining and use of asbestos. Developed countries have banned or at least severely restricted using asbestos. However, developing countries are not showing as much effectiveness in banning asbestos.

Asbestos is a fibrous mineral that is resistant to fire, resistant to chemicals and flexible. Thus, it is a very useful chemical for most people in the developing countries. Since they are ignorant about its harmful effects, they use it extensively. Thus the asbestos industry is one flourishing industry in most developing countries. The asbestos industries are owned by wealthy politicians or by media. So, they cover up research reports and do not release any information about the harmful effects of asbestos. Moreover, they even argue that scientific evidences about mesothelioma’s harmful effects are absent. So, this harmful chemical is being produced and used in a widespread manner in many developing countries like India and China, Though India has banned all other types of asbestos, it has not imposed any ban on white asbestos. In India alone, around I0000 cases of mesothelioma occur every year.

Another issue faced is that the latency period of mesothelioma is very high. That means, the time gap between exposure to asbestos fibers and the onset of mesothelioma may be even up to 20 to 30 years. So, people shift many jobs within this time period and so, they do not link mesothelioma to they’re working in or living near asbestos industry. Sweden is the first country to show a decline in incidence of mesothelioma after a ban on asbestos. It has around 20 cases per million population per year.

As mesothelioma has a huge latency period, medical researchers expect that a vast majority of people would suffer from mesothelioma between 2020 and 2040. In the developed countries alone, it is expected that more than a million people would die of mesothelioma in the next few decades. If this were the case in developed countries, then the situation in developing countries, which have neither banned asbestos nor given any occupational safety or precaution, is frightening.
A complete ban on the mining, manufacture and use of all types of asbestos, in all countries, is the best solution for this problem.

The writer is a research expert at a medical research firm.
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Asbestos Law suits