Proposed asbestos ban is a mistake

Time is running out for Canada’s beleaguered asbestos industry. A final ruling from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regarding the proposed phase-out of all asbestos uses in that country is expected at year-end. At stake are about 2,500 direct Canadian jobs (and a great many indirect jobs) and $340 million in exports, according to the Asbestos Institute, a Montreal- based lobby organization. Since Canada is the world’s largest asbestos exporter, the industry here will almost certainly be destroyed if the epa gets its way.

The ban was proposed on the grounds that asbestos is a health hazar d. True enough. But the case has slowly been building in the scientific community that the risks associated with chrysotile asbestos (the kind that Canada exports) can be reduced to socially acceptable levels. The Asbestos Institute, funded by the federal and provincial governments and the asbestos industry, has been urging the epa to withdraw its proposed ruling. So far the Washington-based agency has stubbornly refused.

However there seems to be hope. At press-time a meeting was being held in Washington among the epa; the U.S. Environmental Defence Fund, which supports a ban; and the Asbestos Institute. The possibility of withdrawing the ban was to be discussed. We believe such a move is essential. The epa would be well-advised to study more closely the 1984 Ontario royal commission report on asbestos use, considered by most scientists to be the definitive study of the subject. The report sets the case for a controlled use of chrysotile asbestos as being safe — a principle supported by both the federal and Quebec governments. To its credit, the royal commission did not propose an out-and-out ban as the answer to asbestos-related diseases. Rather, it found soundness in the scientific evidence which favors the enforcement of permissible exposure limits according to fibre type. Nevertheless the epa assumes all fibre lengths are equally dangerous; it seems intent on ignoring several studies which have shown that short fibres (such as chrysotile) are considerably less dangerous than long ones.

The agency also assumes that all substitutes for asbestos (some of which have yet to be tested) are comparatively safer. This is irrational. Naturally, substitute fibres run the risk of damaging health — especially when they are of a dimension that is more desirable than chrysotile asbestos.

For these and other reasons, the proposed ban is at odds with studies throughout the world, led by the World Health Organization, the Commission of the European Communities and, more recently, the International Labor Organization. At cross- examination hearings held last October, epa officials admitted that their data base was not current and that their analysis was flawed, according to the Asbestos Institute. It’s high time the agency realized that its entire proposal is a mistake.