This week in Geneva, delegates to a conference of the parties to the Rotterdam Convention are again discussing whether chrysotile asbestos should be put on the list of hazardous substances. One hot topic is sure to be Canada, which until 2012 was a major exporter of chrysotile — the most common form of asbestos — and opposed its inclusion on the … [Read more...]
Asbestos Defendant Georgia Pacific: The Potential Legal “Crime-Fraud” Situation Involving Professor Ken Donaldson And GP In-house Litigation Counsel
According to an investigative article, "Dust storm: 'Crime-fraud' allegations cloud conference", published by Hazards magazine, an Edinburgh University scientist, Professor Ken Donaldson, is at the center of a controversy that has potential "crime-fraud" ramifications for Georgia Pacific (GP) as regards its asbestos litigation. In the July - … [Read more...]
Health organisations call on government to halt chrysotile asbestos exports to developing nations
Quoted from http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Health+organisations+call+govt+halt+asbestos+exports/3220879/story.html Health organisations call on government to halt chrysotile asbestos exports to developing nations By Robert Gibbens, The Gazette June 30, 2010 MONTREAL - Three national health organizations Wednesday added their … [Read more...]
California Jury Awards Asbestos Worker $3.4 Million
It only took a day for a San Francisco jury to find a Canadian company liable for exposing a deceased former Johns-Manville Transite plant worker to asbestos. Richard Worthley Sr., worked in the plant in Waukegan, Ill. from May 1968 to 1984, when it closed. He was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2004. The defendant in the case, Advocate Mines … [Read more...]
Canadian Medical Association Denounces Government for Promoting Asbestos
The Canadian Medical Association Journal denounced the federal government for its continued efforts to block international controls on asbestos at the UN-sponsored Rotterdam Convention in 2008. A strongly worded editorial said the government “knows what it is doing is shameful and wrong” and compared Ottawa's moral stature in continuing to … [Read more...]
Defending the Indefensible: Book Review
A book, due out in late August 2008 by Jock McCulloch and Geoffrey Tweedale, Defending the Indefensible: The Global Asbestos Industry and Its Fight for Survival discusses the problems of asbestos in the environment, compensating victims, and the continued use of asbestos in the developing world. The book is based on documentary material gained … [Read more...]
Unpacking Boxes of Automotive Brake Pads Resulted in Exposure to Chrysotile Asbestos
Handling new asbestos-containing brake components has recently been suggested as a potential source of asbestos exposure. A simulation study involving the unpacking and repacking of 105 boxes of brakes (for vehicles ranging 1946–80), including 62 boxes of brake pads and 43 boxes of brake shoes, was conducted to examine how this activity might … [Read more...]