EDITORIAL & OPINION — Quebec dreading outright British ban — Europeans take aim at asbestos

Among the most beleaguered of Canada’s industrial minerals industries continues to be asbestos. Statistics compiled by Natural Resources Canada show Canada’s asbestos output dropped sharply between March 1997 and March 1998, from 33,220 tonnes to 20,815 tonnes.

Now there are indications that bans on chrysotile asbestos will be adopted in the U.K. and European Union within the year. In mid-September, the U.K.’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) called for “regulatory proposals to restrict further the importation, supply and use of chrysotile [white asbestos].” The report goes on to say that “all forms of asbestos can cause asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma . . . no threshold has been identified below which there are no health risks from exposure to chrysotile asbestos fibre.” Not surprisingly, consultations on bans are already under way, even though the HSE’s own research seems to discount the threat of respiratory disease from proper manufacture and use of chrysotile.

Among the victims of such a ban would be Quebec’s already-downtrodden asbestos miners.

The health effects of asbestos have been the subject of intensive research for more than 60 years. And while inhalation of asbestos fibres is known to cause various diseases, sometimes resulting in death, banning the mineral outright is short-sighted and simplistic. There is little health risk to asbestos workers and users provided that the number of airborne fibres to which they are exposed is carefully controlled. Asbestos has been proved harmful only insofar as it can be inhaled, and most present-day applications pose virtually no risk to the public. That’s because the fibres are either locked-in (as in the case of asbestos cement) or encapsulated with little or no scope for fibre release (as in the case of friction products, such as brake linings). Nevertheless, the HSE does not seem to want to acknowledge these scientific facts.

We believe that for the British to bring to an end all asbestos-related industrial and commercial activities, as France has done, would be foolish: the level of fibres in the air to which workers are exposed can, in most cases, be limited with safe work practices, dust-collecting ventilation systems and masks.

If what these European policy-makers are saying were true — that all fibres are equally dangerous — then we are all in trouble, considering that there are so many of these fibres in the natural environment. A surprising study on atmospheric pollution by asbestos fibres in EU countries states that natural emissions are probably even higher than industrial emissions. Asbestos occurs naturally in the bedrock, air and water supplies almost everywhere in the world. No harm is posed, however, from its ingestion.

In September, a report by the European Union’s Scientific Committee on Toxicity, Ecotoxicity and the Environment concluded that asbestos substitutes were safer than chrysotile. We disagree. Many manufacturers of substitute fibres, such as glass and refractory-ceramic wools, have issued warnings that those fibres have been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals. To assume, as a policy position, that all substitute fibres are safer is nonsense. Naturally, substitute fibres run the risk of damaging health — especially when they are in the dimension that is respirable and especially when they are more durable than chrysotile. And since there are no regulations on these fibres, people are going to be less cautious about them. With asbestos, on the other hand, we at least know how careful we have to be.

We urge British and EU policy-makers to re-think their stance on asbestos, and they should begin by studying all the scientific data at their disposal. Demand for the fibre has been declining steadily since the 1970s, and too many mining communities have been crippled as a result.