DuBose Law Firm

India’s continuing reliance on asbestos construction products and its lack of environmental regulations will result in an explosion of malignant asbestos-related diseases including mesothelioma and lung cancer, warn experts in this month’s issue of The Lancet, a leading medical journal.  

Asbestos  is a natural mineral which causes a variety of cancers including mesothelioma and lung cancer.  “Sadly, this is a human tragedy which is entirely preventable,” says mesothelioma lawyer Ben DuBose of Dallas, Texas.   “The government of India knows that asbestos is a deadly substance – a fact known by the world’s medical and scientific community for decades.  What makes the situation in India deplorable is that the government of India would knowingly unleash this epidemic on its own citizens in 2010” says DuBose.  

Asbestos disease, generally thought to be a problem of the past, will continue to be a human tragedy of the 21^st Century thanks  not only to weak environmental policies in the developing world but also because of the gross indifference of Canada – currently the world’s largest exporter of chrysotile asbestos.   

The government owned asbestos mine in Quebec Canada exported over $90 million dollars worth of Chrysotile asbestos in 2009 to developing countries such as India and Mexico.   The Chrysotile Institute, an influential organization funded by the Canadian government, lobbies internationally on behalf of chrysotile as a “safe” asbestos fiber.  Indeed, Canada has been instrumental in trying to stop international agreements to abolish exportation of the fiber. 

In the United States, the EPA long ago declared that all fiber types, including chrysotile, cause cancer in humans.  Asbestos, including chrysotile, was the first substance regulated by OSHA in 1972.  Moreover, the World Health Organization has declared that chrysotile and all asbestos fiber types cause cancer in humans even at low levels of exposure.  This global consensus that asbestos is a lethal substance has prompted more than 40 countries – including all member states of the European Union – to ban chrysotile asbestos. 

Tragically, the governments of many developing countries have not enacted measures to protect their citizens from the hazards of asbestos.   In India, for example, there’s a very low awareness of the health hazards of asbestos.  As one expert, Arthur Frank of Drexel University, told The Lancet, “We can expect a lot more death and disease, that’s no secret.  There’s no champion for the working person, or for the elimination or reduction in the use of asbestos, that I can see in the central Indian Government.”