A video produced by WorkSafe BC (the Workers’ Compensation Board of British Columbia), which is dedicated to promoting workplace health and safety for the workers and employees of the province, provides a fascinating glimpse of how asbestos fibers affect the body. British Columbia is the westernmost Canadian province, and WorkSafe BC serves areas including Vancouver Island, Lower Mainland, BC Interior and BC North.

The short video mainly illustrates asbestosis, a severe scarring of the lungs caused by the inhalation of microscopic asbestos fibers. However, these fibers also can cause mesothelioma, a deadly cancer that most often affects the lining of the lungs, but which also can affect the stomach and/or the heart.

According to WorkSafe BC, since the year 2000, more workers in BC have died from asbestos disease than any other workplace injury.

Watch the video!

Canada is one of the few countries that still mines and produces asbestos, which it exports to countries such as India, Indonesia and Pakistan for use in construction material. Quebec, where Canada’s two asbestos mines are located, has one of the highest rates of mesothelioma in the world.

This week, according to a report by the Canadian HR Reporter, the Canadian Labour Congress is calling for a ban on the mining, and a financial support plan for the approximately 700 miners who would be affected by the industry closure.

The call for the ban comes despite delays in making public the results of a scientific study examining the health risks of asbestos. According to CBCNews.ca, “Michel Arsenault, president of the Quebec Federation of Labour, in February convinced his colleagues at the Canadian Labour Congress not to call for a ban on asbestos mining until after the study was completed and made public.”

The study, conducted under the direction of Health Canada, was begun last November by a team of seven scientific and medical experts. According to CBC, the report was completed in March and promised to be released in weeks. Experts who worked on the project are objecting to the delay in releasing the report.

CBC quotes Leslie Staynor, head of the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois, who worked on the study, as saying, “I want to make the record clear that nothing in the report would argue against the sensibility of an asbestos ban in Canada or for that matter anywhere else in the world.”

The CBC report points out that asbestos has been called a “deadly threat” by the International Labour Organization, the World Health Organization, the International Association for Cancer Research and many more health agencies.

A video produced by “theREALnews.com” reports on a recent development that shocked many people, when Canada refused to ban asbestos as part of a national toxic trade treaty (The Rotterdam Convention).The treaty creates a list of harmful chemicals that companies cannot export without “informed consent” from the receiving country. Chrysotile asbestos was on the list of items to be included as banned as toxic substances. Canada (along with 5 other countries) blocked the inclusion of Chrysotile asbestos. Chrysotile is one of the three main kinds of asbestos mined.Canada has traditionally been one of the largest exporters of asbestos (mainly to third-world countries, like India).At the recent ADAO Asbestos Awareness Day conference, I leanred there is a huge argument in the asbestos industry, where they are trying to say that Chrysotile asbestos isn’t “as dangerous” or dangerous at all, because its shape is different than the other two main forms of mined asbestos, amosite and crocidolite.This video says that Canada’s refusal to ban asbestos is tied to its concern that by acknowledging asbestos’ danger, the government will be responsible for the hundreds of thousands of people in Canada that are now sick with asbestos disease (not to mention people unemployed by mine closures), which is a huge number in areas where these asbestos mines were located, and in the industrial areas where asbestos coated equipment, such as in electrical / power generating plants.This video features Barry Castleman, who spoke at the conference, who is an independent consultant in toxic substances control and author of several books, including most recently, Asbestos: Medical and Legal Aspects.The discussion of what’s going on in Canada was a big part of the conference.This is a great piece.