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The prevalence of asbestos-containing products throughout homes in Kazakhstan is cited as a classic example of the dangerous technologies of yesteryear. Unfortunately, the presence of this toxic material within structures and in Kazakh homes continues to pose a serious health risk. The fact that the author of the text cited below commented on the carcinogenic nature of chrysotile asbestos is of significance as Kazakhstan is the world’s second biggest asbestos exporter and one of the key orchestrators of the global asbestos propaganda campaign. See: Какую смертельную опасность таят вещи из бабушкиного серванта [What mortal dangers are hidden in things from grandmother's sideboard].

A case against the former UK conglomerate Cape Asbestos and other defendants has been listed for a February 2025 trial by a South Carolina (SC) Court. The litigation arises from historic sales by Cape of asbestos-containing material in SC and other US states. The case is Cape, PLC, individually and successor in interest to Cape Asbestos Company Limited, by and through its duly appointed receiver, Peter D. Protopapas v. Anglo American PLC, et. al., case number 2020-CP-4001759. See: Anglo American PLC, ESAB Corp. and Billionaire Mohed Altrad to Stand Trial for Cape Asbestos Liabilities.

The 4th Division of a Regional Labor Court in São Paulo, last week ordered Brazil’s asbestos giant Eternit, SA to pay compensation of R$1 million (US$178,000) to a worker who had contracted mesothelioma as a result of workplace asbestos exposures. The 76-year old claimant worked for Eternit for thirty years. The plaintiff’s lawyer Janaína Amadeu said the verdict could become a precedent for similar cases. See [subscription site]: Eternit é condenada a pagar R$ 1 milhão a trabalhador que comprometeu pulmão com amianto [Eternit ordered to pay R$1 million to worker whose lungs were compromised by asbestos].

On October 11, 2024, the Uganda Minister of State for the Luwero-Rwenzori Region Alice Kaboyo launched a new government initiative when she distributed asbestos-free replacement roofing material to schools in the Busoga and Luwero sub-regions. These buildings are currently roofed with asbestos-containing sheeting, a product which the Government has deemed a hazard to human health. In addition to the 15,333 iron sheets distributed in 2023-24, this year the Government will distribute an additional 15,000 iron sheets. See: Gov't starts iron sheet distribution to replace asbestos roofing in schools.

Because of Swindon’s industrial legacy as a railway building center, the signature asbestos cancer, mesothelioma is often referred to as the “Swindon disease.” A Mesothelioma Garden in Queen’s Park, which was first opened in 2003, was reopened last week after extensive renovations to improve accessibility and ensure that the public space continued to provide a “suitable space for reflection.” See: Town's cancer memorial garden given revamp.

A 66-year old power station worker won his case last week when the Court of Messina ordered that the Italian Workers Compensation Authority (INAIL) recognize his disease as occupationally-caused. The claimant suffers from chronic bronchopathy, microplaques of the diaphragm and pulmonary fibrosis. He had worked as a maintenance man for Enel, Italy’s National Electricity Board, for 30 years at numerous power plants in Sicily, including those in San Filippo del Mela, Augusta, Priolo, Porto Empedocle, etc. See: Amianto, in Sicilia 6200 morti in 25 anni. Vince la battaglia legale un ex lavoratore nelle centrali Enel [Asbestos, 6200 deaths in Sicily in 25 years. A former worker in Enel power plants wins legal battle].

China’s epidemic of lung cancer is costing 10,000 lives every year and in excess of 20 billion yuan in lung cancer treatment costs. Eighty per cent of lung cancers in China are lung adenocarcinomas; the majority of these patients did not smoke. Dr Chen Jinxing, a medical expert from Taiwan, advised women not to use cheap powdered cosmetics because they might be contaminated with asbestos fibers and to limit the amount of time they wear make-up to minimize the cancer risk. See: 不抽菸、没做饭仍罹肺腺癌 台大医：1类化妆品别用 [If you don't smoke or cook, you still get lung adenocarcinoma. National Taiwan University doctor: Don't use Class 1 cosmetics].

The legacy of historic asbestos use in Singapore has been linked to the escalation of asbestos cancer cases despite the fact that asbestos use was banned 30+ years ago. In the early 1980s, there were five cases diagnosed of mesothelioma – the signature cancer associated with exposure to asbestos – every year; in 2019, there were 110 cases. For sufferers to access government benefits, the link between occupational asbestos exposure and the disease must be proved. This is often very difficult as shown by the fact that of the 394 cases reported to the Singapore Cancer Registry, only 94 were confirmed as occupational by the Ministry of Manpower. See: Asbestos: Singapore’s Toxic Past Is Catching up With It.

In the aftermath of man-made and environmental disasters, the hazard posed by the liberation of asbestos by widespread destruction adds yet another layer of hazard to local people as well as to emergency workers and reporters. The situation in Gaza, which has been under sustained bombardment since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, was described in the article cited below as a “Death Sentence” for people who have no way of escaping from the toxic air: “According to United Nations estimates, some 800,000 tonnes of the bombed-out debris across Gaza may be contaminated with asbestos.” See: ‘Death sentence’: Asbestos released by Israel’s bombs will kill for decades.

Following approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, a new treatment option is being recommended as the first-line treatment for patients with advanced or metastatic pleural mesothelioma. The new protocol combines the use of Keytruda (pembrolizumab) – an immune checkpoint inhibitor (immunotherapy) – with chemotherapy. Using personalized medicine to better delineate effective treatments, the use of this combination is dependent on the subtype of mesothelioma with patients with non-epithelioid mesothelioma responding “much better” to immunotherapy than those with the epithelioid subtype. See: Keytruda Plus Chemo New Standard of Care in Pleural Mesothelioma.

Students from Casale Monferrato, the town at the epicenter of Italy’s asbestos epidemic, have long played a valuable role in the campaign to raise awareness of the asbestos hazard and keep a high public profile for the disaster which killed not only asbestos workers but also members of the public. Last week, 800 students formed a “human chain,” as they marched through the town to the park built on the site of the infamous Eternit asbestos factory. See: Casale, 800 studenti formano una 'catena umana' contro l'amianto [Casale, 800 students form a ‘human chain’ against asbestos].

Clydeside Action on Asbestos, now renamed Action on Asbestos, marked its 40th year anniversary last week. This Glasgow-based charity was started by men with first-hand experience of occupational asbestos exposures from their work in Scottish shipyards and factories. The appalling conditions they described were widespread as was “the misinformation they were given by their bosses” who reassured them that that exposure to white asbestos was safe. The employers were, said campaigner Phyllis Craig, “counting on workers’ ignorance.” See: Asbestos charity's tribute to workers as it marks 40 years.

Although asbestos was banned in Korea, there are still asbestos-containing products within the national infrastructure. The asbestos contamination of schools is of particular concern and news of the asbestos cancer death of one former student was reported in the article cited below. Lee Sung-jin was in his 30s when he died having been diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma when he was 18 years old. It is believed that he had been exposed to asbestos roofing in his childhood home as well as asbestos material in his elementary school. See: [단독] 교실 천장이 부른 비극…"잠복기 최대 40년" 우려 출처 : SBS 뉴스 원본 링크 [Exclusive. Classroom ceilings sparked tragedy... “Incubation period of up to 40 years”].

On October 3, 2024, a court in Naples, Italy ordered that the shipyard defendant Fincantieri pay compensation of €1 million (US$1.1m) to the surviving family of a worker who died from pleural mesothelioma in 2019, aged 59. The deceased, who had been employed by the company from 1977 to 1981 at the Castellammare di Stabia plant, had been routinely exposed to asbestos. The size of the verdict and the recognition of the worker’s exposure to asbestos fibers brought home by his shipyard worker father was, said the family’s lawyer, a “significant milestone towards justice for asbestos victims.” See: Amianto nel cantiere, risarcimento da un milione per operaio [Asbestos at construction site, compensation of one million for worker].

Judge Rodrigo Machado Coutinho of the 6th Federal Court of Porto Alegre, Brazil ruled on September 29, 2024 that the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) must pay R$100,000 (US$ 18,325) for moral damages to the family of a professor who died of asbestos cancer. The deceased, who had worked as a bacteriologist in a UFRGS lab, had been exposed to asbestos due to UFFRGS’s negligence in failing to implement safeguards. See: UFRGS é condenada a indenizar em R$ 100 mil família de professor que morreu de câncer causado por amianto [UFRGS is ordered to pay R$100,000 in compensation to the family of a professor who died of cancer caused by asbestos].

The text cited below is a brief report on the annual scientific meeting of Australia’s National Centre for Asbestos Related Diseases (NCARD), which was held on September 18 & 19 at the Harry Perkins Building in QEII Medical Centre, Perth. During the sessions, NCARD researchers were able to explain their work to an audience which included members of the community and asbestos victims’ campaigning groups as well as scientific and medical experts. Research updates were provided on topics such as mesothelioma, lung cancer and pleural disease; also discussed was cancer biology in general and the health system’s national infrastructure. See: NCARD 2024 Annual Scientific Meeting – Public Lecture available online.

Just when you thought you had seen it all, you realize you were wrong. The lengths to which asbestos pushers will go to continue to ride the asbestos gravy train truly knows no bounds. This year, an asbestos trade association – Indonesia’s Fibre Cement Manufacturers’ Association (FICMA) – is trialing a new legal stratagem designed to: counteract a Supreme Court ruling unfavorable to the asbestos sector and cower campaigners brave enough to challenge the industry’s dominance. The audacity of this legal manoeuvre is breathtaking and, to my knowledge, totally unprecedented. The FICMA lawsuit, which targeted the consumers’ protection organization that had petitioned the Supreme Court to mandate Government action on the asbestos hazard, is claiming substantial damages from the NGO for loss of future profits. [Read full article]

Romana Blasotti Pavesi was a member of a club that no one wanted to join; she lost her husband Mario, daughter Maria Rosa, son Ottavio, sister Libera, nephew Enrico and cousin Anna to the asbestos cancer mesothelioma. Only Mario had worked with asbestos. All the others had been exposed to carcinogenic fibers in the built environment and in the air of their home town Casale Monferrato, the municipality at the center of Italy’s asbestos epidemic. In the face of her own losses and those of so many others, Romana dedicated her life to “the fight against asbestos.” The news of Romana’s death, at the age of 95 on September 11, 2024, sparked off intensive media coverage at home and a global outpouring of appreciation from fellow campaigners. [Read full article]

In a place long forgotten by the industrial enterprises which abused its people and polluted their land, a human-made miracle is taking place. From September 2 until September 20, 2024 an asbestos taskforce is providing free health screening for 450 individuals from the towns of Bom Jesus da Serra, Poçes, Caetanos and Planalto in the Brazilian State of Bahia. The bulk of the funding for this program was allocated from money impounded by the Labor Public Ministry from penalties paid by defendants which had been convicted of failing to provide mandatory occupational protections for their workers. [Read full article]

September 3, 2024 marked a turning point in the 30-year French battle for asbestos justice. A struggle to hold to account some of the people responsible for the country’s deadly asbestos epidemic collapsed when the Court of Cassation (Supreme Court) issued a ruling upholding a 2023 dismissal by the Paris Court of Appeals of criminal charges against executives of the country’s biggest asbestos group: Eternit. This was the latest in a series of defeats faced by asbestos victims and their legal representatives. More than a hundred years after Labor Inspector Denis Auribault reported excess mortality of asbestos workers in a textile factory in Condé-sur-Noireau, Calvados, French courts continue to fail the victims. Shame on them! [Read full article]

Until the 1970s, Canada was the world’s largest asbestos producer with mines in Quebec, British Columbia and Newfoundland. Although it was soon to be overtaken by output from mines in Soviet Russia, Canada remained the global asbestos cheerleader for decades to come. The price paid for Canada’s asbestos profits included lives shortened and families shattered. A national epidemic of asbestos-related diseases, discoveries of asbestos material contained within the national infrastructure and the perennial problem of what to do with huge mountains of asbestos mining waste continue long after the asbestos cash flow evaporated. [Read full article]

An insightful podcast broadcast on the BBC this summer raised the profile of the hazard posed by the presence of talc in make-up, cosmetics and personal hygiene products in the UK. The first 14-minute episode of “Talc Tales” – part of the How They Made Us Doubt Everything series – featured the case of British woman Hannah Fletcher, who was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma at the age of 41. Ms. Fletcher believed that she contracted the signature asbestos cancer as a result of exposures to toxic talcum powder. Spurred by this allegation, podcaster Phoebe Keane submitted the contents of her make-up bag for analysis. The results, which were delivered in the last of the five episodes, validated the ongoing hazard posed by the use of talc in cosmetics. [Read full article]

In a joint press release issued on August 20, 2024, representatives of asbestos victims and trade unionists from Asia, Europe, Latin America and Australia expressed concern over recent developments at Brazil’s Supreme Court (STF), an esteemed and venerable institution. According to the official court schedule, the verdict on the unconstitutionality of a state law allowing asbestos mining and exporting to continue despite a national ban was expected on August 14. Without a word of warning or explanation, the case disappeared from the court docket. An appeal was made to the STF to “take the right course of action and reschedule the delivery of this ruling for the earliest opportunity” (Clique aqui para ler a versão em português). [Read full article]

Even though it is winter now in Brazil, Christmas has come early for Eternit SA, the country’s sole remaining asbestos producer. The week beginning August 12, 2024 was a bumper one for the company with plaudits a-plenty and gifts raining down. As Eternit emerged from more than six years of a court-supervised judicial reorganization process, it was lauded as an inspiration to Brazilian corporations “as a valuable example of how companies in crisis can reinvent themselves and thrive.” Contemporaneous developments at the Supreme Court and Goiás State Legislature made it abundantly clear that Eternit, whose asbestos exports are worth US $4,750,000+ per month, still had plenty of influential friends left. [Read full article]

As global demand collapses and competitors crowd into remaining markets, the Russian asbestos behemoth is weakening. At the same time as Russia’s traditional customer base is disintegrating, competitors in Kazakhstan and China are developing new trade routes and streamlining logistics to capitalize on the woes of Russian suppliers. As demand continues to decline, market forces may succeed where the Russian government has failed. With dwindling sales, Russia’s once mighty asbestos industry may no longer be financially viable. Time will tell. [Read full article]

In the compilation of the July 25, 2024 asbestos news items for IBAS, I noticed a pattern in the content available. The developments reported on that day from Asia, Europe and North America illustrated the evolution of the global asbestos agenda from the early days of promotion to the end stage of eradication with a stop en route to address claims by the injured. With so much political uncertainty and social instability on the horizon, it is reassuring to see that progress is being made to end the global epidemic of asbestos-related diseases and provide justice for the injured. The sooner humankind transitions to asbestos-free technology, the safer the world will be. [Read full article]

If asbestos producers have their way, the global epidemic of asbestos-related deaths could well continue into the 25th century. And yet asbestos, in all its forms, is categorized as a Group 1 carcinogen (“carcinogenic to humans”) by the International Agency on Research for Cancer. According to data published on July 22, 2024 in The Lancet, Asia bears the highest disease burden of lung cancer, with 63.1% of newly diagnosed lung cancers and 62.9% of lung cancer deaths occurring in the region…” It is no coincidence that the region with “the highest disease burden of lung cancer” is also the region with the highest consumption of asbestos. [Read full article]

At an art exhibition held in Dundee, Scotland on May 9, 2024 by the Scottish asbestos charity Asbestos Action, ten original portraits of asbestos victims by artist Craig Semple were displayed. The objective of the event was to show that people are “much more than their diagnoses.” Commenting on the day, the Charity’s General Manager Dianne Foster said: “Every single person who is diagnosed with an asbestos-related condition has a life, has a family, has friends, and it is a very unfair situation that people have been exposed to asbestos.” Positive feedback was received from many of the hundred or so people who attended the showing. [Read full article]

Last week, millions of readers of major UK newspapers were reminded of the country’s tragic asbestos legacy in stories about asbestos-related deaths from occupational, second-hand and environmental exposures. Almost simultaneously, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) released figures confirming the continuation of the epidemic which has been killing Britons for over a century. According to new HSE data, 5,000 people+ die annually from asbestos-related diseases including mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis, cancers of the larynx and stomach; there is no data for the number of asbestos-related deaths caused by cancers of the ovary and pharynx. Calls are being made for the new Labour Government to take action on this national scandal. [Read full article]

The death of Robert Vojakovic was announced on June 27, 2024. Robert was a star in the galaxy of asbestos campaigners: he was indefatigable, incontrovertible and irrepressible. Coming from thousands of miles away, Robert Vojakovic grew to represent the very best of Australian values in his fight for a “Fair Go” for workers in his new country. Over the span of fifty years, he devoted his time and energy initially as a volunteer, latterly as the President of the Australian Diseases Society of Australia, to making manifest the devastating impact asbestos exposures had had on miners, millers, transport workers and family members from the infamous asbestos mining town of Wittenoom, where he himself once worked. [Read full article]

The news released last week that Russia’s Ministry of Health (MoH) was considering plans to recognize occupational cancers, including those caused by exposures to asbestos, as industrial diseases was as huge a surprise to ban asbestos campaigners as it was a shock to Russian vested interests. The consultation period was due to close yesterday (June 17, 2024). No doubt the MoH received angry complaints from Orenburg Minerals, Uralasbest and other asbestos stakeholders over the implicit threat to the substance at the heart of their enterprises. After all, if asbestos is hazardous enough to be on the authorized list of diseases caused by occupational exposures in Russia, then the industry propaganda which affirms that asbestos use is safe is patently untrue, as we all know it to be. [Read full article]

Late on June 11, 2024, Italy’s Supreme Court (the Court of Cassation) announced that it had overturned a decision by the Palermo Court of Appeal which had nullified a first-instance guilty verdict for the asbestos deaths of 39 shipyard workers and the serious injuries sustained by 11 other employees. The lower court had ruled that the negligence of executives Giuseppe Cortesi and Antonio Cipponeri had resulted in dangerous workplace asbestos exposures at the Fincantieri S.p.A. shipyard in Palermo in the 1980s. The Court of Appeal rejected this decision saying that exposure to asbestos at the company’s shipyard in Palermo had ceased in the early 1980s. The Supreme Court found the decision of the Appeal Court “erroneous” and ordered a new hearing. [Read full article]

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Demonstration in Woluwe Park, Brussels, 2006

Under cloudy skies, members of Belgian and French Asbestos Victims' Associations from Dunkirk and Bourgogne marched side-by-side in the third annual demonstration organized by ABEVA, the Belgian Association of Asbestos Victims. Erik Jonckheere, ABEVA's Co-chairman, condemned the government which still refuses to recognize the plight of the asbestos injured.

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