The battle over America's long-awaited ban on asbestos has reached a critical juncture in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, where the 2024 EPA rule faces fierce industry challenges that could determine the fate of worker safety protections nationwide.
Showing posts with label Chrysotile. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chrysotile. Show all posts
Friday, September 19, 2025
Friday, July 11, 2025
Asbestos Ban: A Win for Workers
In a significant development for public health and worker safety, the Trump administration has withdrawn its plan to reconsider the Biden-era ban on chrysotile asbestos, the last form of asbestos still imported and used in the United States. This reversal comes after a period of uncertainty and public outcry, marking a crucial step toward finally addressing the long-standing threat of asbestos exposure in the United States.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Asbestos: The Silent Epidemic Continues
For John Nolan, the first warning signs came mid-November of last year while he was leading a tour in the Peruvian Andes.
Mr. Nolan, 67, who lives in Fort Erie in southwestern Ontario, was guiding a group through the mountains near the storied Incan city of Cuzco.
He had criss-crossed the planet for years as a tour guide, and knew what higher altitudes typically felt like. But something terrifying happened while he was hauling his luggage up some steep stone steps to his cabin.
“I’ve never been out of breath in such a panicky, horrible way,” Mr. Nolan says in a raspy voice between laboured breaths. “Normally, when you run out of breath, you know you’re going to get it back. This was different. It was as if you were hitting a stone wall, with no hope of getting air. It was like suffocating.”
The diagnosis, back at home, was swift and cruel. It was mesothelioma — an incurable cancer caused almost exclusively by asbestos exposure. Mr. Nolan was initially given a few months to live.
Asbestos is the top on-the-job killer in Canada. But a Globe and Mail investigation has found that this stark fact has been obscured by the country’s longstanding economic interest in the onetime “miracle mineral.” Even though Canada’s own asbestos industry has dwindled from pre-eminence to insignificance — the country’s last two mines closed in 2011 — the federal government has dragged its feet as other nations have acknowledged asbestos’s deadly impact and moved to protect their populations from it.
The diagnosis, back at home, was swift and cruel. It was mesothelioma — an incurable cancer caused almost exclusively by asbestos exposure. Mr. Nolan was initially given a few months to live.
Asbestos is the top on-the-job killer in Canada. But a Globe and Mail investigation has found that this stark fact has been obscured by the country’s longstanding economic interest in the onetime “miracle mineral.” Even though Canada’s own asbestos industry has dwindled from pre-eminence to insignificance — the country’s last two mines closed in 2011 — the federal government has dragged its feet as other nations have acknowledged asbestos’s deadly impact and moved to protect their populations from it.
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Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author of NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman 1.973.696.7900 jon@gelmans.com have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.
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Sunday, July 6, 2014
British employer jailed for illegal supply of asbestos sheeting after worker fell to his death
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| Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
| A 64-year-old Shropshire man has been sentenced to 12 months in prison after his company illegally supplied roofing panels containing asbestos. Company director Robert Marsh’s offences came to light after a 56-year-old construction worker, who was roofing a barn using the panels, fell through the fragile material and later died. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that Mr Marsh, sole Director of RM Developments (2005) Ltd of Newport, Shropshire, had supplied pre-used roofing sheets containing white asbestos to a farming partnership building a barn in Frankley, Worcestershire. During a three-day hearing which ended today (4 June), Worcester Crown Court heard that after Mr Marsh supplied the roofing sheets, the partnership hired steel erector Tony Podmore to use the materials to build the barn. But during the final phase of its construction on 8 June 2011, Mr Podmore, of Calf Heath, near Wolverhampton, fell through the fragile asbestos cement roof sheets, landing on the concrete floor more than six metres below. He later died of his injuries in hospital. The farm partnership had agreed to pay £4,000 for what they thought would be substantial roofing material. However Mr Marsh supplied poor-quality, second-hand roof panels that had cost him nothing. As he had paid just £250 for transport, he stood to make a profit of £3,750 on the roof alone. The court was told that after the... |
Friday, November 22, 2013
“Scientists Who Help Asbestos Industry Sell Asbestos” by Kathleen Ruff
Kathleen Ruff, RightOnCanada.ca, November 21, 2013 The asbestos industry will be holding a conference in New Delhi, India on December 3 & 4 to promote use of asbestos in India. The International Chrysotile Association (ICA), an organisation financed by the asbestos industry and which promotes the industry’s interests, is organizing the conference. The ICA has now put on its website a list of its speakers and summaries of their pro-asbestos presentations. The purpose of the conference and of the ICA is to promote continued use of chrysotile asbestos, particularly in India, the biggest importer of asbestos in the world. Scientists and health experts around the world have condemned the asbestos industry and its allies for disseminating deadly, deceptive misinformation that will cause disease and loss of life. Many of the speakers have been paid by the asbestos industry for years to take part in activities and events to promote use of chrysotile asbestos, particularly in developing countries. They form a small, notorious group of asbestos industry allies. David Bernstein, for example, has received millions of dollars from asbestos lobby organisations for research on rats which, according to Bernstein, shows that rats positively enjoy being exposed to chrysotile asbestos. A New York court recently concluded... |
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Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman 1.973.696.7900 jon@gelmans.com have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Facing lawsuits over deadly asbestos, paper giant launched secretive research program
 The re-created compound was applied to wallboard, allowed to dry and then sanded. The dust was shipped to a laboratory near Geneva, where Bernstein supervised a series of rat experiments. Lab workers wore “moon suits” to protect themselves from asbestos fibers. In a pilot study, the rats were divided into three groups of 14 and confined in tubes for five days, six hours a day. The control group breathed filtered air. The second group breathed chrysotile fibers, the third a mixture of chrysotile and aerosolized joint compound particles.  The rats were killed after exposure and their lungs and pleural tissue were examined. The “chrysotile exposed lungs had the same appearance as the filtered-air controls,” Bernstein and his co-investigators reported. No obvious lung damage, in Bernstein’s view, translated to little or no cancer risk.In a later experiment, one group of rats inhaled re-created Ready-Mix containing chrysotile. Another group inhaled amosite asbestos, part of the amphibole family. The rats exposed to chrysotile showed “no pathology in either the lung or the pleural cavity,” Holm testified in his deposition. Those that breathed amosite showed “both... |
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Scientific improprieties in the asbestos industry funded research of McGill professor
Asbestos research, and its validity, is a much debated quesstion. Today's post is shared from Kathleen Ruff, RightOnCanada.ca
Here is a powerful, detailed and damning scientific analysis of improprieties in the research of Prof. J.C. McDonald on Quebec asbestos miners – The Past is Prologue, Universities in Service to Corporations: The McGill-QAMA Asbestos Example. This analysis was presented by Prof. David Egilman at the McGill asbestos conference on October 1, 2013. It is clearly presented and well worth reading. At the conference, no response was provided to the damning information that Prof. Egilman put forward. Prof. McDonald’s research was financed with one million dollars by the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association (QAMA). Prof. McDonald used his research to promote the use of chrysotile asbestos around the world. His research continues today to be used by the global asbestos industry to promote the sale and use of chrysotile asbestos. It was used, for example, by the global asbestos lobby at the May 2013 Rotterdam Convention conference to help defeat the listing of chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous substance. McGill continues to state that Prof. McDonald’s research was conducted “according to the rigorous scientific standards for which McGill is known”. McGill has not however addressed the detailed and damning evidence that Prof. Egilman has put forward. Prof. Egilman and other scientists have called on McGill to carry out an... |
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Carolina Asbestos Textile Industry Risk High Mortality
Image via WikipediaStudies of workers in two US cohorts of asbestos textile workers exposed to chrysotile (North Carolina (NC) and South Carolina (SC)) found increasing risk of lung cancer mortality with cumulative fibre exposure. However, the risk appeared to increase more steeply in SC, possibly due to differences in study methods. The authors conducted pooled analyses of the cohorts and investigated the exposure-disease relationship using uniform cohort inclusion criteria and statistical methods.Increased rates of lung cancer were significantly associated with cumulative fibre exposure overall and in both the Carolina asbestos-textile cohorts. Previously reported differences in exposure-response between the cohorts do not appear to be related to inclusion criteria or analytical methods.
Friday, June 24, 2011
The Ugly Canadians
Today, Canada blocked the United Nations from banning asbestos. Reuters reported, "Chrysotile asbestos will not be listed as a hazardous industrial chemical that can be banned from import after countries including Canada and Ukraine blocked consensus."
An editorial in the Toronto Star called the action by Canada as hypocritical:
"The hypocrisy is staggering. The federal government has spent millions to clear its own buildings of this noxious material — including taking it out of 24 Sussex Drive to protect the Prime Minister and his family. Canadian companies, schools and homeowners have also removed asbestos from their structures. Yet we happily export it.The asbestos industry in Quebec has been dying for years and employs only about 300 people. There’s no future in these operations. The miners should be given help to find new jobs or a decent pension and the mines left to wither away. This toxic trade needs to end."
"Asbestos kills. The World Health Organization calls it “one of the most serious occupational carcinogens” and notes that it’s a factor in 90,000 deaths each year. But we keep selling more than $100 million of it each year to countries such as India and Indonesia, where it is used in the manufacture of cement and auto parts. We even market it with a Canadian flag logo, leaving the impression it is stamped with government approval."
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"The asbestos industry in Quebec has been dying for years and employs only about 300 people. There’s no future in these operations. The miners should be given help to find new jobs or a decent pension and the mines left to wither away. This toxic trade needs to end."
As the Canadian Globe and Mail posted today, "We are the Ugly Canadians."
Canada Called A Pariah State
Canada's activities at the UN Rotterdam Convention to prevent the listing of chrysotile asbestos as a carcinogen has been internationally denounced. Despite the knowledge of the deadly effects of asbestos fiber, Canada continues to encourage the mining of the asbestos for its pecuniary gain in Quebec.
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