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Mesothelioma and Asbestos News - July 2005


Japan Lawmakers Pressured into Banning Use And Sale of Asbestos


Monday, July 18, 2005

A recent spike in the number of mesothelioma-related deaths is putting pressure on Japan’s government officials confronted by a Japanese asbestos industry group. The demands came nearly 25 years after the World Health Organization warned of the fact that asbestos was a carcinogen; however Japan did not ban the two most dangerous kinds of asbestos until 1995. It prohibited the use of asbestos in all types of construction last year and promised to ban it entirely by 2008.

The banning of asbestos by Finland and Italy forced the lawmakers to propose a bill which would have banned the manufacture, use, and sale of asbestos. It also called for its impacts on health to be assessed. However, the Japanese Asbestos Association, a domestic asbestos industry group, lobbied that the health risks of exposure to asbestos were highly overstated, which led to enough opposition to abandon the bill entirely. The association also argued that the alternatives of asbestos, used as a fire retardant, would be expensive and that their safety had not been verified.

Officials of the Japanese Asbestos Association, who at the time believed that “asbestos was safe if laws and government directives were obeyed,” commented that they were wrong after test results were revealed proving the opposite.

A Japanese farm equipment maker Kubota Corp. has stated that 79 of its former employees may have died of asbestos-related diseases over the last several decades. The Health Ministry of Japan also showed that over 900 people died of mesothelioma, an asbestos-related cancer, in 2003 alone. Kubota Corp’s statement has urged other companies to report deaths of former employees and their family members.

Japanese media as well as medical experts have warned the public that they are at risk of contracting the disease by being around thousands of older buildings such as schools and factories where asbestos was used as means of fire prevention during construction.
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