DEVELOPING countries are importing a health time bomb from Canada that is set
to explode in around 30 years, says Antti Tossavainen of the Finnish Institute
of Occupational 午夜福利1000集合.
Canada produced 335,000 tonnes of asbestos last year, he says. Yet domestic
use is low because of strict national asbestos controls. So 98 per cent went to
export markets, mostly in South-East Asia and South America, making Canada the
largest exporter of asbestos in the world.
Tossavainen told the Congress of the European Respiratory Society in Berlin
this week that Canada could stop production without severe economic
consequences. 鈥淭he market is rather small in national terms, just two thousand
workers,鈥� he says.
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Brian Dellaway, chair of the Cheshire Asbestos Victims Support Group in
Britain, backs Tossavainen鈥檚 call. 鈥淭hey don鈥檛 like it in their own country, but
they are quite willing to export it,鈥� he says. 鈥淭here is no doubt that asbestos
is a killer.鈥�
But Canada has been lobbying hard to maintain its exports. In July, the
country鈥檚 Prime Minister Jean Chr茅tien telephoned Chilean President
Ricardo Lagos in a failed attempt to dissuade the country from banning imports.