Beginning in the early 1920′s various evidences of the hazards that asbestos fibers pose to human health began to be amassed by the international medical community. The Merewether report, an investigation into public health conducted in Britain in the beginning of the 20th century, found that an entire quarter of the 360 asbestos textile mill workers it examined were suffering from pulmonary fibrosis, a scarring of the lung tissue indicated by debilitating shortness of breath.
By 1930 the first autopsies that indicated asbestos related deaths were being performed in the United States, and the first known worker’s compensation claims related to asbestos exposure were being filed. At the same time, a concerted effort to downplay the negative effects of asbestos was embarked upon by asbestos manufacturing and milling companies to prevent the collapse of the industry. The tension created by the increased diagnoses of occupational, asbestos related diseases, and the subsequent increased efforts to protect the interests of asbestos mining and fabricating companies finally broke nearly half a century later as many developed countries began regulating asbestos manufacture and use.
Today, a vast majority of asbestos mining and processing facilities in developed nations have been closed, and strict regulations have been imposed on employers which limit the permissible amount of asbestos fiber contamination in air and drinking water to what are believed to be safe levels. Some estimates show that mesothelioma, an aggressive and terminal cancer caused by asbestos exposure, is diagnosed more than 3,000 times each year in the United States alone. With the casualties of negligent asbestos exposure being so high, you would assume that governments world wide would do everything in their power to discontinue the production and implementation of asbestos materials. Surprisingly, that’s not the case.
Ottowa, Canada has spent some $20 million dollars since the 1980′s in campaigns whose aim are to engender a more receptive attitude towards the asbestos industry. Canada remains the worlds second largest producer of the dangerous substance, with Thetford Mines, Quebec, a town of 26,000, as the home of a fully operational asbestos mining facility. Canada itself doesn’t use the vast majority of the asbestos that it produces; after mining and fabricating the substance into various products it exports them to developing nations.
