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The Canadian government must stop touting asbestos worldwide or be responsible for an escalation of the global asbestos cancer epidemic, international groups have warned. Efforts over the last two years to introduce stringent right-to-know controls on the worldwide trade in chrysotile (white) asbestos have since 2004 been blocked by a Canadian-government sponsored campaign. Together with other asbestos exporting nations, the Canadian-led lobby has effectively vetoed a widely supported proposal to place chrysotile, an acknowledged and potent carcinogen (cancer causing substance), on the Rotterdam Convention’s "Prior Informed Consent" (PIC) list.
The proposal to add chrysotile to the UN-backed PIC list will be re-tabled at a 9-13 October 2006 Rotterdam Convention meeting in Geneva. Ahead of this meeting of government representatives, the global building union federation BWI has teamed up with the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS) to publish a dossier warning of the deadly consequences of a further veto and urging governments to back PIC listing of chrysotile asbestos.
Chrysotile Asbestos: Hazardous to Humans, Deadly to the Rotterdam Convention says the failure to list chrysotile is undermining - and could eventually discredit - the Rotterdam Convention, sending a message to those peddling the most dangerous industrial substances that PIC controls can be sidestepped with a minimum of effort. The BWI/IBAS report says urgent calls for chrysotile to be PIC listed have been made by asbestos victims, trade unionists, public health campaigners, major occupational health authorities, NGOs and politicians from developed and developing countries. The report warns, however, that far from diminishing, asbestos trade to developing nations is currently increasing.
BWI General Secretary Anita Normark said:
“Even conservative estimates show asbestos is responsible for one death every five minutes. Our members, many of whom work in the building trades, are among those most at risk of occupational exposure to asbestos. Today, more building workers die each year from past exposures to asbestos than are killed in falls. Failure to include chrysotile on the PIC list will ensure that the asbestos epidemic which has taken so many lives in the developed world will became a major public health disaster in developing countries, with generations more dying premature and painful deaths.”
IBAS Coordinator Laurie Kazan-Allen said:
“The Rotterdam Convention was founded with the specific intention of ending the physical and economic exploitation of vulnerable populations. Should the impasse on chrysotile remain, sales to unsuspecting governments and consumers of a potent human carcinogen will continue unabated. The growing use of asbestos in the developing world will lead to more ill-health and more deaths. Using the example of chrysotile as a precedent, countries which sell other toxic chemicals will veto plans to list their products. And so a vicious cycle will begin.”
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