Document gboLMJB2bb7j3Nmp0k4p52NXJ

FILE NAME: Asbestos in India (IND) DATE: 1979 DOC#: IND004 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: Book Excerpt [Reference to British Asbestos Mines in South Africa] for almost all their 1 December 1976 (in an )S and alternative ma5quite likely that many stos can continue to be to health.' Engineer April 1977, material', wrote: `Over has been considerable aspects of using asbesorating asbestos. Much rmed, often of a congiven rise to anxiety, olic, who are often the une or in their vehicles.' 77, `Do we still need ' research can be safely 'anies, who are working ements...the economic os is a strong one.' d Design June 1977, isal': `The position has sed... fears have largely l news features.' away from the `profes^et even worse. Thus were treated to a re gards of asbestos in an Smither - Cape's own its search for profit the e a good job of cover ie health hazards of its ctions of a responsible lines >n asbestos, Dr R.S.J. '<Department of Mines, itingly high' levels of ts. By August 1977 he itions in the asbestos are under effective j Conditions in asbestos mines in 1949 were des cribed by a US doctor, G.VV.H. Schepers5 During 1949 I made the first official governmental radiological and clinical survey of the asbestos industry in the North East ern Transvaal. A t that time, industrial hygiene in one of these mines and asbestos workswassimply deplorable. Exposures were crude and unchecked. I found young children, completely in cluded within large shipping bags, trampling down fluffy Amosite asbestos, wmch all day came cascad ing over a hefty whip. I believe these children to have the ul timate dust exposure. X-rays revealed several to have radiological asbestosis with Corpulmonale (failure of the right side of the heart) before the age of 12. Why Dr Sluis-Cremer-.---did not see them 10 yeVrs later is fairly evident. There was probably not one of them still alive... To gain a true perspective he should have seen those mines in 1949. In the valley where the mill was located asbestos dust rolled through like the morning mist, and I had a hard time keeping my staff in working trim because of itching skins caused by asbestos adhering to our clothes. Even the food at the local hotel was gritty wi th dust. control'.6 But figures he released of dust analysis done by his department as late as 1976 showed that the dust level in the mines varied from 1 to 9 fibres per ml (over 4 times the safe level allowed in the UK - see p .l 19). As the Annual Report of the South African Government Department of Mines for 1973 commented: `Current concentrations (of asbestos dust in the air) still represent a health hazard and further . improvements must be brought about'. In 1975 j Rodney Cowton, a journalist with The Times, { approached the two major British asbestos \ companies with mines in South Africa --Turner j and Newall and Cape Industries -- asking what j they were doing. Both companies claimed it was j their policy to bring their operations throughout v the world to British standards. `Both claimed to be making some progress in this direction but neither would give a target date for the fulfil ment of that policy,' he reported.7 Meanwhile j blue asbestos, under a voluntary ban by the asbestos industry in the UK because of its dangerous nature, is being mined more than ever by Cape's in South Africa. One law for the white and another for the black? 5 Annals of the New York Academy o f Sciences, vol 132, 1965, p.246. 6 Letter to BSSRS. August 1977. 7 The Times, 20 January 1 975. Playing next to an African asbestos mine.