Fighting Mesothelioma - APHA Adopts Resolution to Prohibit Asbestos

Sometime during the week of November 8 through 14, the 50,000-member American Public Health Association (APHA) - the nation's oldest, biggest and most diverse organization of individuals working in the public health sector - passed a resolution calling on Congress to pass laws that would prohibit the domestic manufacture of asbestos-containing products and a prohibition against the import or export of such products.

This move by the APHA, founded in 1872, puts them in alliance with the World Federation of Public Health Associations, which in 2005 in Geneva, Switzerland called for a worldwide ban on asbestos manufacture and distribution, noting that the availability of safer substitutes for asbestos makes such a ban mandatory "to prevent the victimization of peoples in developing countries and those in transition due to inequities in their ability to control unsustainable economic practices."

APHA's move was applauded by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), an organization founded in 2004 by asbestos victims and their families to deliver a united voice against the continued use of a toxic substance.

A worldwide ban against asbestos use, initiated in 2002 by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and extended in 2003 by the UN Development Program, or UNDP, under the auspices of the Rotterdam Convention, was prevented by Canada and 13 other asbestos-producing countries (Brazil, Thailand, Russia and Zimbabwe, India, Algeria and Columbia, to name a few).

The Rotterdam Convention provides for the safe trade of hazardous substances under a "Prior Informed Consent" rule; the full name is "Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade". If approved, asbestos in all its forms would have been added under Annex III of the Convention. This would have conformed to World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations that state the only way to prevent future asbestos-related diseases is to discontinue use of all types of asbestos.

Both WHO and ILO (the International Labour Organization) have noted that, while worker deaths in industrialized countries have been falling (during the last decade), deaths from occupational disease, notably asbestosis, have been rising, with 100,000 deaths from asbestos occurring around the world every year, 10 percent of them in the U.S. alone.

The sad fact is that most of these deaths are occurring in nations where asbestos (manufacture and import) is not banned. This includes developed nations like the U.S., Australia and Japan. Of course, many of these deaths are "legacy" deaths, stemming from mesothelioma's long dormancy period of between two and four decades. Mesothelioma is the only disease whose cause is solely asbestos, though smoking is thought to exacerbate the progression of the illness.

By 2004, national asbestos prohibitions were present in all 25 member countries of the European Union, or EU, as well as Argentina, Australia, Chile, El Salvador, Gabon, Honduras, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles and Uruguay - with South Africa and Japan considering joining the coalition.

In 1989, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, attempted to ban asbestos in any and all domestic products. This ban, at the behest of the Canadian asbestos industry and with the cooperation of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court, was watered down to specify a one-percent limit (by weight, or volume) in domestically manufactured products, though importation of asbestos remains unlimited.

The fight to ban the lethal substance was taken up again, in 2007, by U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), but her bill was also gutted by lobbyists for the industry.

Now, with the APHA increasing the political pressure to put an end to asbestos use in America - a pressure enhanced by the recent settlement in Libby, Montana, at the site of the former W.R. Grace mine - the possibility of a federal asbestos ban looks more hopeful.

It would do nothing to help those already exposed, but would put paid to the asbestos legacy already stretching out to 2030 thanks to failed legislation to prevent this deadly substance from entering the American workplace, and from there into American homes.

Sources: American Public Health Association, ColdTruth.com, Chrysotile Institute, World Federation of Public Health Associations

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