Document 65y4J0K7v5Yr3q7yOn388bj0o

Commentary " _ -i_____ II_______1 I I____ // _ . A - I________ J_______ riT^he term "controlled use" has I been used by the asbestos JL industry to present a picture of an industrial hazard that is not a threat, to health because of precau tions taken in the manufacture and use of asbestos products. This is a critical review of the use of that term as essentially sales propa ganda, Staving never been reflected in actual practice where asbestos and asbestos products have been used. Particular attention is directed to asbestos cement (A-C) products, which now account for over 90% of asbestos use worldwide. Prior to the era of regulation starting in the 1970s, which Hyder abad Industries' Dr. Rao incorrectly refers to as a ``period of ignorance on asbestos health hazards."1 mem bers of the Asbestos Cement Pro ducers Association in (he United Slates worked to develop a brochure for users of A-C products. There was strong reluctance by some linns to include any health warning infor mation, and in 1970 the group rejected a recommendation by some members to put a warning about the hazards of sawing A-C products in the brochure.2 Most, of those com panies have since been forced into bankruptcy proceedings over US lia bilities arising from their longstand ing failure to place health warnings on their asbestos products. The Era of Regulation In the early 1970s, the U.S. Occu pational Safely and Health Admin istration (OSHA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency were established, and similar new laws establishing governmental reg ulatory powers were enacted in Europe and elsewhere. As OSHA moved to issue a special standard for asbestos, the industry vigorously objected to every aspect of the pro posed rules. Requiring cancer warnings on asbestos products, the companies said, would devastate the makers of asbestos products, especially A-C pipe producers, whose main market was sale of con duits for drinking water supply sys tems. The proposed exposure limit of 2 f/cc already adopted in Britain in 1969 was objected to by the industry in the US as prohibitively costly, and it was warned that (he asbestos textile industry was most at risk of losing U.S. jobs to "foreign competition." It was true that by the end of 197S a clear pattern had emerged, show ing that asbestos textile production was being reduced in the United States and imports were increas ing--but to a considerable extent, the companies supplying the U.S. market from Mexico and Venezuela were subsidiaries of U .S.-based asbestos companies. Other U.S. asbestos textile imports came from the affiliates of a Japanese company in Taiwan and South Korea. But though there was international flight in asbestos textile production, the picture of asbestos manufactur ing as a whole in the 1970s was one of international double standards among the affiliates of the major asbestos-based multinational corpo rations headquartered in the United States, Europe, and Australia. It would soon be noticed that U.S.based and British multinational asbestos companies operated plants in India under conditions that would have grossly violated their home-country standards.3-1 The U.S. companies were able to gel most of their objections to the proposed OSHA asbestos standard satisfied by the Nixon administra tion, in the standard adopted in 1972. The words "cancer" and "danger" were not required in the text of the warning labels, and not all asbestos products were even required to bear warning labels. OSHA did not require health warn ings on all asbestos products, but relented to industry pressure and left it to tlie manufacturers to deter mine whether the short-term (15minute) peak limit of 10 1/cc or the eighl-hour-average limit of 5 f/cc (scheduled to be lowered to 2 f/cc in 1976) could be exceeded by product use. If the manufacturer determined that foreseeable use of its product would not exceed OSHA's permissible exposure limits (PELs), above, "caution" labels were not required by OSHA. OSHA staled that such an exemp tion to the label requirement might apply to products where the asbestos content was "modified by a bonding agent, coating," or othermaterial that would limit the release of respirable asbestos dust. From this time on, the descriptive words "focked-in" and "encapsu lated" began to appear in the state ments of the representatives of the asbestos industry. Additional regu lations on asbestos were issued within the next few years by the U.S. EPA and the Food and Drug Administration, and the U.S. Con sumer Product Safety Commission banned asbestos in widely sold wallboard-patching compounds. Hyderabad Asbestos regularly ran full-page advertisements from 1976 to 1980 in Asbestos magazine, 294 which closely reported regulatory developments in the United States and the world. In March and April 1980, Asbestos featured an interna tional industry review on occupa tional health and safety too large for one issue of the trade magazine. Frequently, Hyderabad ads ran in the same issues of the magazine that contained hill-page ads from Asbestos Corporation Limited (Canada) picturing the World Trade 'lowers, and intoning, "When life depends on it, you use asbestos" (e.g., April and October 1976; April `l977; October 1978). The manufacture of asbestoscement products in India was up in 1975 (to over 50,000 m.i./yr), the magazine reported, by more than 50% over the volumes for (he previ ous years (October 1976). In 1975, U.S. asbestos consumption started its long decline, which would be most precipitous in the 1980s. Exposure of Workers Using Asbestos Cement Products Asbestos cement products were among those referred to in indus try statements as one example of products where the asbestos was "locked in" by a cement matrix that would, it was said, prevent signifi cant exposures to airborne asbestos. In the 1970s, asbestos exposure data emerged, mainly from industry sources, showing the high exposures that could occur from certain common practices used in construction with A-C prod ucts. At a government-industry conference in 1976, a JohnsManville official reported that use of power saws on A-C sheets could cause exposures over 250 f/cc; with well-designed and properly oper ated local exhaust ventilation, he said, this could be reduced to 0.8 f/cc.:>-,>'s Such a system would include a properly designed metal hood fixed over the saw blade, con nected with an exhaust hose to a fan ducted to a high-efficiency par ticulate air filler unit. Pictures of the hoods and hoses on power tools with local exhaust ventilation attachments appeared for a short time in (1980-81) advertisements in Asbestos magazine, but these spe cial saws and drills were rarely if ever actually used in the construc tion industry. When I wrote to the environmental protection chief of the government of Brazil in 1986 to ask him about this, he replied that such devices were not in use in his country and criticized the Labor Ministry as ineffective in protecting workers from such hazards as asbestos. The Asbestos Cement Pipe Pro ducers Association in the United States released reports in 1977 showing that abrasive disc saws, commonly used in construction work involving A-C pipe, created exposures measured at 26-109 f/cc in saw operators and 10--49 f/cc among saw operators' helpers.b The industry trade association thereafter officially recommended against the use of abrasive disc saws, although the effect of this on actual practices in the construction indus try, if any, is questionable. Within the next five years, most of the plants making A-C products in the United Stales closed down, as public awareness and concern led to a collapse in demand and a shift to safer substitute products. Japan ese scientists reported quite high exposures from field cutting of A-C pipe more than ten years later. Exposures from repair wx>rk on A-C pipes using high-speed disc cutters inside and outside holes dug in the ground to gain access to the pipes were recorded as: 49-170 f/cc (mean value 92) inside the hole, and 1.7-15 f/cc outside.7 if this kind of extreme exposure has con tinued until so recently in Japan, it is reasonable to expect that it is widely prevalent in Asia and other parts of the world where A-C pipes are still widely used and there are few or no product stewardship efforts by manufacturers. In the late 1970s, there was a scandal in Puerto Rico over hous ing for poor people that the gov ernment had constructed with A-C flat sheets and corrugated roofing from an asbestos company in Colombia. Even before the people learned that, asbestos was deadly, there was much concern about the dust from winds disturbing the inte rior ceiling panels over the family rooms and from the occasional need to break into the walls to do plumbing repairs. After the cases came to court, the A-C houses w'cre ordered to be carefully taken down, and 1,800 families were relocated to other housing/ When 1 visited one of these communities, I saw a house where the man had broken an archway through one of the walls to open up the space beuveen two of the rooms. No one had told him this was dangerous. The doctor had diagnosed bronchitis in his infant child, caused by breathing the dust created by this renovation. That child may have developed asbestosis or cancer by now. What government can hope to reach such people and extend to them the protection of public health reg ulations? This case demonstrates the futility of controlling the haz ards of A-C materials once they are used in the construction of hous ing, schools, or commercial, public, and industrial structures. Substitute Fiber-Cement Products Under pressure from regulatory authorities, companies in Europe and Australia developed asbestosfree fiber cement products, using fibrous glass, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA). aramid fibers, and cellulose. The Swiss Eternit Group's affiliate in Costa Rica was forced to use local materials when the government rejected the idea of spending hard currency to import asbestos in 1984. The firm developed a new product using w'ood pulp from an indige nous pine tree, giving the new; prod uct the same warranty as the replaced asbestos product. The Aus tralian multinational, James Hardic, developed a process using wood pulp from New Zealand to make VOL 9/NO 3, JUL/SEP 2003 Commentary 295 liber cemeni sheeis at its sub sidiary's plant in Ipoh, Malaysia, which i visited in 1987. The com pany manufactures such products now in Chile, the Philippines, Aus tralia, and New Zealand. Hardic- has more recently introduced cellulose fiber cement pipes for non-pressurized uses in the linked Slates. The French multinational firm SainlGobain is introducing PVA-cement technology in Brazil. Encouraging results have been reported by Brazilian researchers with blast furnace slag and wastes such as coconut coir, sisal byprod ucts, waste of eucalyptus pulp, and fibrous banana plant wastes.'1'11 Commercial development is going forward to make corrugated sheets, with 100 percent Brazilian ownership. The Central Building Research Institute in India has reported favorable results with coir and with bagasse.1213 Both papers reported the successful development of tech niques and compositions that would make boards that met inter national performance standards. The use of abundant plant fibers and wastes to make liber cement building materials--in addition to making products safer than asbestos cement--can significantly reduce the enormous environmen tal burden of the construction industry. It can provide building materials to poor people in rural areas. Countries can also reduce their outlays of hard currency for imports of asbestos and synthetic libers, instead using locally avail able materials. The Intel national Program on Chemical Safety's Report on Chrysolite Asbestos In 1993, a process began that would result in the issuance in 1998 of Chrysotile Asbestos, an Environmental Health Criteria Document (EHC203) by the International Program on Chemical Safely (IPCS). IPGS was housed at the World Health Organi zation headquarters. Criticism of the improper influence of business interests at IPCS came to a head in 1993, when the U.S. National insti tute for Occupational Safely and Health (NIOSH) severed its link with IPCS partly over the dominance of scientists with lies to the asbestos industry in the IPCS Task Group selected to draft EHC-203. There had been continuing eomroversv into 1996, but still no document emerged. A distinguished group of 81 scientists wrote to the IPGS criti cizing corporate influence in the development of IPCS documents on asbestos and chemicals, arguing that there was nothing new on chrysolile's toxicity that warranted the effort of a new review. At this point, the U.S. govern ment agencies with links to IPCS met, and a letter was issued from the U.S. Stale Department on June 24, 1996, detailing ways that IPCS could better disclose and prevent the harm from reliance on outside experts having financial conflicts of interest. The IPCS convened a more balanced panel of experts a week later in Geneva to complete work on the asbestos document, which then existed only in a very incomplete, unreferenced draft. The week dial the expert panel set about its work, the government of France announced that it was ban ning asbestos products. The report ultimately published by IPCS con cluded that there was no level of chrysotile exposure that was free from cancer risk, and recom mended in particular that, chryso tile asbestos not be used in con struction materials. The WTO Asbestos Case The government of Canada reacted to the French asbestos ban (and the trend of all the countries of Europe to ban asbestos) by bringing a trade dispute at the World Trade Organi zation (WTO). This claimed that with regulations to protect workers, consumers, and the environment, there was no need to ban asbestos. Central to this claim was the idea that with "controlled use" of asbestos, the remaining risks to public health were insignificant. WTO empaneled four scientific experts and arranged to hold a day of hearings in January 2000. As a scientific advisor to the European Commission defending the French ban, I attended the hearings. In a statement filed on Decem ber 13, 1999--one month before the scientific hearings were sched uled to lake place, Canada explained its use of the phrase "controlled use." The statement began with a qualification never expressed before: "Canada has advocated the use of chrysotile in high-density products only; textiles are not of that category." (During the scientific hearings in January 2000, Canada's senior attorney went so far as to assert that "Cana dian asbestos is not used, cannot be used these days in the manufacture of textiles, because nowhere do we know are these textiles being now manufactured.") This unprece dented declaration did not include any explanation of how Canada restricts exports to makers of "highdensity products" only in India and other countries. Indeed, the Cana dian asbestos company Cassiar was advertising "high quality weaving fibre" later in the year 2000. Canada's December 13 state ment continued: With regard to downstream use sectors, "controlled use" implies that ail distributors/manufactur ers of asbestos will be required to have an import permit. This permit will be withdrawn if the company does not meet the fol lowing commitments: --to distribute its products only to companies (users) licensed to purchase these products. Those companies must have workers trained and licensed to install products, and must be in compli ance with regulations. Approved users shall not resell to third par ties, and any unused materials must be returned to the manu facturer; 296 Commentary INI J OCCUR ENVIRON HEALTH --to provide a list of users to the responsible government agency; --to provide products cut to specification and to establish centres equipped to cut the products to size, and where per sons cutting the products are trained and are licensed to work with asbestos; --to police downstream users in cooperation with the govern ment. The product manufacturer visits, monitors and reports on the performance of the down stream users at regular intervals. There are penalties for failing to provide this product stewardship. Canada's statement does not advocate a stewardship role for Canada and other countries that export asbestos. Nowhere does it stale that asbestos-exporting coun tries and companies have any responsibility to assure that manu facturers meet minimum safety requirements or that violators will be cut off from supplies. Instead, the Canadian statement places the burden of surveillance and puni tive action on tire product-manu facturing industry (and importing governments)--even though the industry has never done such things anywhere in the world. Why are nations that import asbestos obligated to assume the cost of restraining the abuses of the asbestos industry? Presumably, so Canada can enjoy unrestricted free dom (from product stewardship) to export; asbestos. Canada's suggestion that, asbestos suppliers would establish field fabrication centers to cut products is wholly implausible. One need only spend a short time in the dense traffic of Delhi, Sao Paulo, or Bangkok, for example, to doubt that the asbestos industry would provide arty number of such cen ters--or that construction compa nies would regularly interrupt work to use them. Similarly, it is difficult to imagine that product manufac turers would conduct industrial hygiene surveillance of their cus tomers, let alone report miscreants to the government. Again, not a single asbestos product manufac turer has ever done such policing. Even in the case of asbestos man ufacturing industry and product, use where regulatory restrictions had been in place for many years, WTO was told that asbestos prob lems remained out of control. One of the scientific experts appointed by WTO, Dr. Peter infante of the United Slates, testified that OSHA, where he worked, had issued 4,000 citations in the years 1990-1998 for violations of 'the 1.994 OSHA asbestos standard. A brake manu facturer had been lined $125,000 for exceeding the 0.1 f/cc PEL, not providing respirators, and dry sweeping tire floors, only months before the WTO hearing. None of the scientific experts appointed by WTO thought, that Canada's por trait of "controlled use" bore any resemblance to reality. Canada lost the case, lacking proof that there was some practical form of "controlled use" whereby France could reduce the hazards of using asbestos to insignificance. The WTO concluded that in the case of something whose deadly clangers were so thoroughly known ;ts chrysotile asbestos, each country has the right to determine its own acceptable level of risk, even to the extent of harming the product from trade. The WTO, it should be noted, was a forum where those claiming that; there was such a thing as "controlled use" of asbestos would receive the most receptive treatment, since Canada was the party arguing for the elimination of trade harriers. As an example of its bias, the WTO gave very limited consideration to the availability of alternatives to asbestos cement other than those products using alternative fibers (PVA, aramid, and cellulose) in a cement matrix. Other alternative products, such as high-density polyethylene pipe and ceiling tiles made of lightweight, concrete and clay, were hardly con sidered at all in the WTO's decision. The Politics of Controlling Asbestos Hazards In the early 1990s, the govern ment of India supported research into development of fiber-cements using plant fibers. Since then, India has established relatively high duties (70.6%) on the importation of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fibers, one substitute for asbestos (duty 32.6%). This was a decisive disad vantage in 2001, when Eternit Ever est converted one plant in Maha rashtra to make PVA cement roofing. Eternit Everest was also starting to make flat, sheet products using coir and other vegetable fibers that were competitive with A C sheets. Eternit Everest was then 52% owned by the Belgian multina tional Etex, which had a global policy of not continuing to own interests in asbestos. But then Etex sold its interest to Associated Cement Companies, an Indian firm that previously owned 26% of Eter nit Everest. Now that Indian inter ests have bought; out Etex, Eternit Everest is going back to asbestos 100%. '' The situation in India contrasts dramatically with that in Brazil. Unions, political leaders, asbestos victims' groups, and public health activists have combined to press for bans on asbestos nationally and locally. With the failure to incite prosecution of the leader of the ban-asbestos movement, labor- inspector Fernanda Gian nasi, for "criminal defamation," the domi nant French multinational Saint- Gobain announced that it would get out of the asbestos mining and manufacturing business in Brazil by 2005, as it was required to do throughout Europe. Starting with the asbestos ban in Osasco, Brazil, in September 2000, bans on asbestos have been put into effect in major cities and states, including Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilian government is continuing a strong research effort into the use of locally available waste plant fibers, and Brazilian businesses are VOL 9/NO 3, JUL/SEP 2003 Commentary 297 starting to invest in making this technology a commercial reality. Following the ban in Osasco, national asbestos bans were imposed in Chile and Argentina. The difference between India and Brazil is deeply tied up with the issues of freedom of speech and the integrity of the public health system. In India, the leading propo nent of banning asbestos is Dr. T. K. joshi, a highly credentialed, respected, and dedicated physician in the held of occupational health. Dr. Joshi faced tremendous opposi tion for just raising the issue of ban ning asbestos at the February 2001 meeting of the Indian Association of Occupational Health, IAOH.1'1 Since then, he has persuaded many of his colleagues, including his suc cessor as IAOH President, Dr. G. K. KulkarniT' For his efforts to pro tect the people of India from asbestos, Dr. Joshi was threatened with the severance of his job at Lok Nayak Hospital and was not paid for more than six months. If the asbestos interests in India had been able to get the government to lire Dr. Joshi, that would carry grave implications for the future of health protection of workers in India. This led to an international campaign in support of Dr. Joshi, which was ultimately successful in helping persuade the powers-thaibe to renew' his appointment for another year. Fernanda Giannasi was also tar geted by asbestos interests in her country, but the courts rebuffed efforts to harass her, and her bosses in the government did not give in to pressures to lake punitive measures against her. She had widespread public support both in Brazil and internationally, and the media in Braz.il covered the asbestos story avidly. Having survived harassment and death threats, Fernanda Gian nasi went on to receive many awards and honors in her country for her public health work on asbestos. CONCLUSION It is noteworthy that the two largest multinational corporations that con trolled global asbestos trade and operated major interests in India 20 years ago have since gone into bank ruptcy proceedings over the liabili ties in the US from the many lives asbestos destroyed. Other histori cally dominant multinational asbestos companies in Europe and Australia have staved in business, eliminating asbestos from their product lines. The companies remaining in asbestos product man ufacturing in the world today are smaller, usually national, business entities. They are not so widely known, nor are many of them as sen sitive to bad publicity as the multina tional asbestos companies were. Some are run by former officers of deposed Latin American military dictatorships. Some asbestos investors and managers are oppor tunistic businessmen who got in when the multinationals got out of asbestos. Whether long established or new to asbestos, these people are in effect betting they can run a dis credited, hazardous technology for a lew more years, then close down the companies and not pay significant disability compensation to anybody. Some arc; also belting their blood money can corrupt governments and destroy anyone w'ho dares to stand up to them. Asbestos compa nies are doing quite a brisk business in India, still answering critics with the mantra of "controlled use." "Controlled use" of asbestos is the asbestos industry's way of referring to business as usual with a false lace. Really well controlled use of asbestos has never existed anywhere in the world, and it isn't being invented any where today, if the remaining coun tries using asbestos now' are unable even to hall tire continuing use of it in new construction material and vehi cle brakes, what hope can there; bethat they will ever attain that elusive, changed, and desired state of exis tence, "sustainable development"? Currently available technolog)' ofveg etable waste fibers in cement compos ites is an especially encouraging alter native to asbestos cement. Barry Gastleman, ScD Environmental Consultant RO. Box 188 Garrett Park, MD 20896, U.S.A. < bcastleman@earth.linh. net> References 1. Rao VC. Letter. Indian J Occup Envi ron Med. 200 i; 5; 6(V7(h 2. Castlernan HI. Asbestos: Medical and Legal Aspects, 4th ed. New York: Aspen, 1996: 671--1. 3. Castlernan BI. Double standards: asbestos in India. New Scientist. 1981; Feb 26: 522-3. 4. Castlernan BI, Mayes R, Madan R. Industrial hazards exported to India. Economic and Political Weekly. 1981; 16:1057-8. ' 5. Remarks bv Milt 'Prosper, Asbestos Information Association North Amer ica. Third Annual Industry-Govern ment Conference, Sept 8-9, 1976, Washington, 1)C, pp 109-! 15. 6 D M I M >ui i > bin s e; at ( u m,. a ; Machining ot Asbestos-cement Pipes-- Additional Studies. Equitable F.nviron- nifi .1 lh, . In up m \ ( Pipe Producers Association. Arlington. ':;'GwP<kriCi9^ '' 7. Kumagai S, et ai. Estimation of asbestos exposure among workers repairing asbestos-cement pipes used lor con duits. Sangkyo Igaku. 1993;35: 178-87. 8. Castlernan BI, Yera-Vera MJ. Impend ing proliferation of asbestos, hit J Health Serv. 1980; 10: 389-403. ' 9. Savastano H. Warden PC, Contis RSP. Brazilian waste fibers as reinforcement for cement-based composites. Cement and Concrete Composites. 2000; 22: 379-84. 10. Savastano II, Warden PG, Contis RSP. Ground iron blast furnace slag as a matrix for cellulose-cement materials. Cement and Concrete Composites. 2001; 23: 389-97. 11. Savastano H. Sustainable cement based materials and ledmitjues for rural con st ruction. <holnicrsj@usp.br>. 12. Agarwal LK. Bagasse-reinforced cement composites. Cement and Con crete Composites. 1995; 17; 107-12. 13. Agarwal LK. Studies on cement bonded coir fibre boards. Cement and Concrete Composites. 1992; 14:63-9. 14. Castlernan R. Heroism in occupational health. Im } Health Serv. 2001; 31: 669-72. 15. Kulkarni GK. Asbestos--to ban or not to ban? Indian ] Oceup Health. 2001; 5: 2. 298 Commentary INT J OCCUP ENVIRON HEALTH