Repeat call to ban asbestos

22 Apr 2010

Repeat Call to Ban Asbestos 

by Laurie Kazan-Allen

In March 2010, the Collegium Ramazzini, an international academic society specializing in occupational and environmental medicine, issued its second call for asbestos to be banned worldwide. The Collegium's Asbestos is Still with Us: Repeat Call for a Universal Ban, states:

“All forms of asbestos are proven human carcinogens. All forms of asbestos cause malignant mesothelioma, lung, laryngeal, and ovarian cancers, and may cause gastrointestinal and other cancers. No exposure to asbestos is without risk, and there is no safe threshold of exposure to asbestos. Asbestos cancer victims die painful lingering deaths. These deaths are almost entirely preventable…

Early suggestions that chrysotile might be less dangerous than other forms of asbestos have not been substantiated…”

This document is a follow-up to one issued a decade ago by the Collegium: Call for an International Ban on Asbestos which stated:

“To eliminate the burden of disease and death that is caused worldwide by exposure to asbestos, the Collegium Ramazzini calls for an immediate ban on all mining and use of asbestos. To be effective, the ban must be international in scope and must be enforced in every country in the world.”²

The 2010 document provides news of recent developments including scientific research and global action; it highlights the adoption of asbestos policies by the World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization which support a phasing out of asbestos use. The authors urge: “All countries of the world ... to join the international endeavor to ban all forms of asbestos.”

March 8, 2010; Revised March 20, 2010