New petition to ban asbestos because previous efforts were deemed insufficient

New petition to ban asbestos because previous efforts were deemed ‘insufficient’

A new petition currently seeking signatures is asking House of Representatives members to pass a bill to outlaw the importation and use of products that contain asbestos. People who deal with asbestos-exposed victims such as clinical scientists, physicians, nurses, and others are supporting the petition.

Many advocates of petition are the same public health leaders who supported Senator Patty Murray by testifying in her six-year campaign to pass a ban on asbestos. Once her bill passed, however, there were many criticisms of it from the same people that wanted to see it passed.

It was because the original intentions of the bill were no longer there. The original bill, which called for a total ban on asbestos, which the health experts had testified in support of, had become watered down due to pressure from lobbyists with deep pockets working for industries that did not want to see the substance outlawed.

After the bill passed the Senate and once supporters’ celebrations concluded, health leaders read the final bill only to discover that it was not exactly what they had expected. Left out from the ban were asbestos-containing talc, taconite, and vermiculite from several mines in New York, Michigan, Minnesota, and Montana. Also exempt were products that contained less than 1 percent asbestos.

Although Senator Murray said she was also disappointed that certain details were excluded from the bill, she felt that the bill’s passing was a “major step forward” in the fight against asbestos. Not everyone was as enthusiastic, however. The Environmental Protection Agency’s scientists and legislative office, along with the bill’s many other supporters, expressed their concern that it did not accomplish enough and that the public will gain a sense of false hope from its passage.

Asbestos has been banned in 40 other countries due to proven evidence that exposure to the substance has led to the deaths of millions around the world.

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