Seminar on “Facts about the use of Asbestos” bewildered the audience
The seminar on “Facts about the use of Asbestos – Chrysotile Cement Roofing” organised by the Chamber of Construction Industry (CCI) in Colombo last week has bewildered the audience when Legal Adviser, International Chrysotile Association (ICA) Emiliano Alonso was making a presentation on Asbestos claiming that he is not a scientist.
Although Mr. Alonso was listed by the organizers to speak on World Health Organisation’s (‘WHA/WHO’s) position on Chrysotile, he told the gathering that he was not representing WHO. He said “I am not a scientist but I am a lawyer. I am not representing WHO”. He made this pronouncement soon after Prof Rohan Samarajeewa, Founding Chairman, LIRNE Asia who was the moderator of the seminar called upon Mr Alonso to speak on WHA/WHO’s position on Chrysotile.
Dr Jacob Kumaresan WHO representative in Sri Lanka has been invited to deliver a lecture at this seminar by the CCI. But he has turned down the invitation, stating that the spokesperson selected to discuss the position of WHO at the seminar has no affiliation whatsoever with the organization. In a letter to CCI , he informed that WHO considers all forms of asbestos cause cancer. Dr Kumaresan indicated that he was also concerned about the vested commercial interests that are likely to influence the seminar participants and in that regard he has proposed that solutions for replacing Chrysotile with safer substitutes should be the focus, rather than portraying Chrysotile as safe.
Dr Surath Wickramasinghe, President, CCI said that the government’s point of view on this subject of asbestos is not too good and said that there are others like international organisations such as WHO which has its own reservations. There are others who support fully the use of Chrysotile as it is versatile material and very economical and particularly used in third world countries in Asia and Africa, he added. He also pointed out that some of the developed countries in the world like Australia, America and the United Kingdom have banned this building material.
He said that he was interested in two things – why these countries have banned asbestos and also whether there are any statistics or records of deaths due to the manufacture of asbestos in the factories or people living near the factories. Other experts Dr David Bernstein, Consultant on Toxicology from Switzerland spoke on Health risks of Chrysotile revisited; Dr Vivek Chandra Rao, Vice President (Occupational Health) HIL Ltd, India dealt on Current regulations and situation in India. Prof S M A Nanayakkara, Dept of Engineering, University of Moratuwa has also made a presentation analyzing the pros and cons on the use of asbestos (Chrysotile).
Some of the print material distributed among participants at the seminar in support of the various presentations indicated that in Sri Lanka, Chrysotile is primarily used as an ingredient in fiber cement roofing sheets. It has also been revealed that there have been no known medical studies or statistics to show that Chrysotile causes health problems for workers or users. The ICA – Science-Based Facts – Relevant Health Issues – 2015 document revealed that in the WHO report a total of 92,253 ‘mesothelioma’ (attributed to asbestos) deaths were reported within a period of 14 years from 1994 to 2008. Over the 19 years the total number of cases of mesothelioma was 169,537, this report indicated. This amounts to an average of 8,923 cases of mesothelioma per year for all 103 countries.