Asbestos, a substance used commercially for its flame-retardant and insulating properties, has been banned or restricted in 52 countries because it can cause fatal diseases such as lung cancer, mesothelioma and asbestosis. It is banned in the United Kingdom and its use is restricted in the United States, where the industry has paid out $70 billion in damages and litigation costs. But the asbestos industry has found new markets for the product in the developing world, according to an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity:
More than two million metric tons of asbestos were mined worldwide in 2009 — led by Russia, China and Brazil — mostly to be turned into asbestos cement for corrugated roofing and water pipes. More than half that amount was exported to developing countries like India and Mexico.
Officials warn that use of the substance in the developing world will cause the same health problems the West experienced. According to the World Health Organization, 125 million people encounter asbestos in the workplace, while the International Labor Organization estimates that 100,000 workers die each year from asbestos-related diseases. A study by researchers in Delhi predicts deaths from asbestos-related cancers could exceed 1 million in developing nations by the year 2020.
The largely uncharted industry campaign is coordinated, in part, by a government-backed institute in Montreal and reaches from New Delhi to Mexico City to the aptly named city of Asbest in Russia’s Ural Mountains. An analysis by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has tracked nearly $100 million in public and private money spent by these groups since the mid-1980s in three countries alone — Canada, India and Brazil — to keep asbestos in commerce. Their strategy, critics say, is one borrowed from the tobacco industry: create doubt, contest litigation, and delay regulation.
Industry groups have claimed that the type of asbestos currently being mined — white asbestos, or chrysotile — is safer than the brown or blue asbestos they stopped mining in the 1990s. They also said it was ignorance about safety precautions, which caused asbestos-related health issues in the West.
“It’s totally unethical,” Jukka Takala, director of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, told the Center for Public Integrity. “It’s almost criminal. Asbestos cannot be used safely. It is clearly a carcinogen. It kills people.”
In separate articles, the investigation details the asbestos trade in the United States, Mexico, Russia, India, Brazil, and China.
