:Health vs capitalism 1

A Montreal Symposium held last December studying the impact of asbestos on workers’ health concluded something that should already be well known by now in contemporary society: asbestos kills. However, the meeting, held in a context of local slacking off the limits on the use of the lethal fibrous mineral as well as the Quebec and Canadian governments ongoing worldwide promotion of it ⁽¹⁾, was the scene of quite a few instructive reports. Organized by the Quebec National Institute of Public Health, participants learned that Quebec is presently going through an epidemic of cancer of the pleural membrane and a growing number of its construction workers are suffering from deadly illnesses due to exposure to asbestos. An article from Le Devoir quoted one of the health experts, Dr Marc Dionne saying that:

cases of lung and the plural membrane cancers are constantly on the rise. And that is largely due to people who work in construction and demolition and who have been exposed to asbestos at work.

Even a report by the CSST, the Quebec Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (an outfit that is despised by most workers as cheap lackeys of the bosses) admits that between 1988 and 1997, new cases of sickness linked to asbestos have doubled in Quebec while during the same period, cases of mesothelioma (the scientific name for cancer of the pleural membrane) have also doubled. There are three forms of known and deadly diseases caused by this mineral: asbestosis (which is known to have prematurely filled the cemeteries of the mining towns of the Eastern Townships of Quebec) which literally takes away the human being’s capacity to breath, mesothelioma (which usually kills within two years of its appearance) or simply lung carcinoma, a cancer deep inside the lung.

According to the CSST study, what seems to have changed is that a majority of cases linked to asbestos are now caused less by the mining operations as such rather than by its industrial use. This is difficult to evaluate as to our knowledge there were no real studies of this phenomena in the past as individual doctors would just diagnose and announce a fatal cancer to isolated plumbers and insulation workers. This study seems to imply that the mining and exporting of asbestos can be safe and that if we can find some country actually foolish enough to import it to then let it be. However, another study published last summer by researchers Simone Provencher and Louise Deguire ⁽²⁾ admits that 35% of all asbestos caused cases come from mining activity, as do 62% of the lung carcinoma cases they studied.

But this doesn’t seem to worry the "left" nationalists governing Quebec, Canada’s main producing province. They are going forward with their plans to use it more widely, particularly in the asphalting of roads and highways. Ex-Minister Jacques Brassard (who has just resigned following a Cabinet shuffle) has declared:

asbestos is not in any way a threat to public health. ⁽³⁾

There is no sign that the Minister’s resignation will modify this attitude, as it is the established government policy.

This product that is deemed no "threat to public heath" by the State despite years of scientific research proving the contrary (not counting the results of the studies made public at the December Symposium) is a well-known killer of the working class. It is a public heath hazard of truly tremendous proportions. In the U.K. for example a country that doesn’t even produce asbestos, around 1500 people die from mesothelioma alone each year.

But the number of cases is not expected to peak until 2020. An estimated 10,000 people will die from the disease in that year - twice the number killed annually on the roads - according to Thompsons, a law firm acting for a number of the victims. ⁽⁴⁾

Then why hesitate; why not ban the damn product once and for all? Numerous materials exist that can substitute for asbestos in products. These substitutes include calcium silicate, carbon fibre, ceramic fibre, glass fibre, steel fibre, wallastonite and several organic fibres, etc. Unfortunately, none of the above has proved as cost effective. And here again lies the basic problem: money, profits, capitalism. As long as we live in this society based on production for profit, not for human use or even human survival, capitalism will always have a place in its "heart" (portfolio) for this industrial killer. The essence of capitalism is that of a murderer.

(1) According to Le Devoir:

This data is coming forth at a time when the Quebec government, bowing to the pressure of the asbestos lobby, is on the verge of presenting a new policy aiming to expand the use of this product before the end of the year.

12-04-2001

This policy would permit the use of asbestos in the asphalting of roads, concrete and certain plastic matters. The so-called progressive nationalist fools governing Quebec are thus more openly greedy and shortsighted than even their main competitors in Russia. The overtly "liberal" rulers of the Kremlin have decided to export all of their production (see La Presse, 08-31-2001), mostly to Asia. Thus the Russian capitalists are only killing the part of their workforce directly or indirectly in contact with the lethal product. Their main killing fields are the markets abroad. One way or another, the capitalists (Québécois, Russian or other) accumulate while workers die slow and painful deaths.

(2) La Presse, 3 July 2001.

(3) La Presse, 11 September 2001.

(4) WSWS, 19 December 2001.