Two internationally recognized experts who contributed to a Health Canada study on the cancer risks of asbestos are appealing to the federal health minister to make their report public.

The federal agency hired seven scientific and medical experts from around the world last November to examine the risks.

After submitting their report in March, the experts said they were told it would be made public within weeks, but it still hasn't been released.

Health Minister Tony Clement's office told the CBC the report will be made public once his officials have evaluated it.

Leslie Stayner, head of the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois, as well as Trevor Ogden, the chair of the panel of experts, have each written letters to Clement decrying the delay.

"It is simply unacceptable for this report to continue to be withheld from the public, while individuals who have seen the report and our comments make erroneous allegations about what it contains to suit their political objectives," Stayner wrote in his letter.

Last week, Bloc Qu?b?cois MP Andr? Bellavance rose in the House of Commons to argue against growing calls to ban chrysotile, a form of asbestos, implying Health Canada's new study supports his view.

Both Stayner and Ogden, however, said the panel was never asked its opinion on whether a ban on any form of asbestos was appropriate, and that it was only charged with examining the relative potency of exposure to chrysotile versus other forms of asbestos, and how best to estimate the risk of cancer from exposure.

"I want to make the record clear that nothing in the report would argue against the sensibility of an asbestos ban in Canada or for that matter anywhere else in the world," Stayner told CBC.

Canada is the only developed nation still producing asbestos, called a deadly threat by the International Labour Organization, the World Health Organization, the International Association for Cancer Research and a number of more health agencies.

The Canadian government believes asbestos is safe if handled properly and has spent nearly $20 million in the past two decades to promote exports of the mineral, almost all of it going to developing nations such as India, Indonesia and Pakistan for use in construction material.

Labour congress wants compensation for miners.

Michel Arsenault, president of the Quebec Federation of Labour, in February convinced his colleagues at the Canadian Labour Congress not to call for a ban on asbestos mining until after the Health Canada study was completed and made public.

The CLC, however, decided on the weekend to allow delegates to this week's annual convention in Toronto to vote on ending asbestos production, as long as Quebec asbestos miners affected by a shutdown are compensated.

In his letter, Stayner said that while the panel was not asked to rule on whether chrysotile asbestos can be used safely, "from a pragmatic point of view, my answer to this question would be that it [safe use] is simply not possible".

Roughly 700 people work in Quebec's asbestos industry, which includes Canada's only two asbestos mines. The province has one of the highest rates of mesothelioma - cancer almost always correlation to asbestos exposure - in the world.


Posted by: Ashley    Source

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