Repeated call for asbestos ban

A report from the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat advises that, more than 10 years after a global society of occupational medicine experts called for a worldwide asbestos ban, it has reiterated its call and said any further delay will carry a high cost in human lives.

The Collegium Ramazzini, an international academic society that examines critical issues in occupational and environmental medicine, first called for a ban in 1999. In an issued statement, the society notes that, while asbestos is now banned in 52 countries, with safer products replacing many materials that once were made with asbestos, “nonetheless, a large number of countries still use, import and export asbestos and asbestos-containing products. And, in many countries that have banned other forms of asbestos, the so-called ‘controlled use’ of chrysotile asbestos is exempted from the ban, an exemption that has no basis in medical science but rather reflects the political and economic influence of the asbestos mining and manufacturing industry.”

The Collegium statement adds: “All countries of the world have an obligation to their citizens to join in the international endeavour to ban all forms of asbestos. An international ban on asbestos is urgently needed.

“The profound tragedy of the asbestos pandemic is that virtually all illnesses and deaths related to asbestos are preventable. If global use of asbestos was to cease today, a decrease in the incidence of asbestos-related diseases would become evident only two or more decades from now. The asbestos cancer pandemic may take as many as 10 million lives before asbestos is banned worldwide and all exposure is brought to an end.”