It's Complicated: Canada's Dysfunctional Relationship With Asbestos

January 26, 2015- Asbestos exposure continues to be the largest on-the-job killer in Canada.

Recent data from the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada for 2013, the most recent year for which annual data are available, show that asbestos accounts for more than a third of total workplace death claims approved last year and nearly a third since 1996.

The 368 asbestos death claims for 2013 alone represent a higher number than fatalities from highway accidents, fires and chemical exposures combined.

Since 1996, almost 5,000 approved death claims stem from asbestos exposure, making it by far the top source of workplace death in Canada. Many victims die of mesothelioma, an aggressive form of cancer caused almost exclusively by exposure to asbestos, and asbestosis, a fibrosis of the lungs.

In a recent online post, TheGlobeAndMail.com's Tavia Grant looks at what is known about asbestos-related diseases like mesothelioma the disconnect with the actions of the federal government.

"The numbers come as the federal government – long a supporter of the asbestos industry – continues to allow the import of asbestos-containing products such as pipes and brake pads," writes Grant. "A Globe and Mail investigation earlier this year detailed how Ottawa has failed to caution its citizens about the impact that even low levels of asbestos can have on human health. Canada’s government does not clearly state that all forms of asbestos are known human carcinogens. Dozens of other countries including Australia, Britain, Japan and Sweden have banned asbestos."

Here are the highlights of Grant's post, "Asbestos Revealed As Canada’s Top Cause Of Workplace Death":

• Canada, for decades one of the world’s largest exporters of asbestos, closed it's last mine in Quebec in 2011.

• For decades, the mineral was widely used in everything from attic insulation to modeling clay in schools and car parts as well as a variety of construction materials such as cement, tiles and shingles.

• Health experts warn long latency periods, typically 20 to 40 years, mean deaths from asbestos will climb further. "The indications are that we can expect an increase [in asbestos-related diseases] to continue for at least another decade or so. And that’s assuming we as a nation ban it now. If we don’t do that, we can expect it to continue to rise indefinitely, but perhaps at a lower rate," said Colin Soskolne, an Edmonton-based professor emeritus at the University of Alberta quoted in the post.

• In Australia asbestos-related diseases continue to climb after the mineral was banned in 2003. The "responsible public-health action would be to ban the use of asbestos in Canada and other countries and replace it with substitutes," said Dr. Soskolne, adding that there is "no demonstrated safe way to use it in Canada."

• "There’s some misconception that we banned it – and we haven’t," said Jim Brophy, former director of the Occupational Health Clinic for Ontario Workers in both Windsor and Sarnia and also quoted in the post. Canada now has "an enormous public-health tragedy, disaster on our hands."

• "All commercial forms of asbestos including chrysotile, the type formerly mined and most commonly used in Canada, are classified as carcinogenic by the International Agency for Research on Cancer," writes Grant. "Its evidence shows there is no 'safe' form of asbestos nor a threshold that it considers safe."

• Health Canada's website continues to play down the risks of asbestos exposure, in stark contrast to the International Agency for Research on Cancer. It never clearly states that all forms of asbestos cause cancer, but rather that chrysotile asbestos is "less potent" than other forms and that there "is no significant health risk" if the fibers are enclosed or tightly bound. Health Canada told The Globe and Mail it has no plans to update its website, last revised in 2012.

• "Asbestos poses potential health risks only when fibers are present in the air people breathe," Health Canada says. The problem is there’s no way of ensuring that all products are always bound or enclosed. Brake pads wear down; renovations stir up dust while pipes and tiles get sawed.

• The post quotes the World Health Organization saying, "All types of asbestos cause lung cancer, mesothelioma, cancer of the larynx and ovary, and asbestosis." Yet Health Canada still says asbestos fibers "can potentially" cause asbestosis, mesothelioma and lung cancer "when inhaled in significant quantities." The potential link between exposure to asbestos and other types of cancers "is less clear," it adds.

• The post also quotes Heidi von Palleske, who says the numbers capture wives and children who have been affected. She calls herself an asbestos orphan – her father died in 2007, with asbestosis and lung and prostate cancer. He was a former worker at a plant run by Johns Manville, which made asbestos-fiber products. Her mother, who shook out and washed her husband’s clothes for years, died of mesothelioma in 2011 and Ms. von Palleske’s sister and brother have since been diagnosed with pleural plaque (a calcification of the lungs). "It’s inexcusable," Ms. von Palleske tells Grant, adding that she wants to see a ban and better supports for families affected by workplace exposure.

• Grant writes that miners were among the first to be affected, but the range of occupations with workers exposed has expanded in recent decades. The five largest groups are specialty-trade contractors, building construction, auto repairs and maintenance, ship and boat building and remediation and waste management. "About 152,000 workers in Canada are currently exposed to asbestos, according to Carex Canada, a research project funded by the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer," writes Grant.

Read Tavia Grant's full TheGlobeAndMail.com post here.

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