Asbestos, Quebec has canceled the Canadian Cancer Society’s “Relay for Life”, a fund raising event previously scheduled to take place within the town’s streets. The cancellation is the result of political differences arising between the town’s and the Canadian Cancer Society’s positions on the production of asbestos. While citizens of Asbestos push Quebec’s Premier, Jean Charest, for loans that will breath new life into the floundering asbestos mines, the CCS is urging Quebec’s Premier to “let [the mine] die.”

The Jeffrey Mine has been the economic heart of Asbestos, Quebec for more than one hundred and thirty years. When medical discoveries began to shed an ugly light on the mineral in the late twentieth century, Asbestos’s mine didn’t flinch. While Australia, the European Union, New Zealand, and the United States shut down mines and developed tighter and tighter regulations concerning the mineral’s use, Asbestos, Quebec kept right on with their mining operation.

The CCS’s urge not to loan the mine the funds necessary to expand its operations came in the form of a letter. The CCS’s letter was one among many composed by doctors, health organizations, cancer institutes, environmentalists, and activists across the world.

While the whole world seems to be pressuring the town to stop producing cancer-causing asbestos, the town’s residents themselves feel that the mine is not only part of their history, but also important to their livelihood.

“It’s our past, it’s our history, therefore the population is united in support of the mining industry,” says Hugues Grimard, the Mayor of Asbestos.

The town decided to prevent the CCS from conducting the leg of the “Relay for Life” scheduled to occur in Asbestos, choosing instead to support the local population.

“People have stopped me to say, ‘We don’t want to participate in that event anymore’,” says Grimard, “[and] we’re giving [those citizens] our support. We want to work with our partners and not with our detractors.”

Even with the setback of creating new enemies in Asbestos, Quebec, the CCS is respectfully sticking to their guns.

“Our mandate is really public health,” says a spokesmen for the CCS, André Beaulieu, “and right now, obviously, the community’s looking from an economic point of view and we understand.”

Serpentine, the California state rock, may be in peril of losing its title due to a small amount of asbestos content. Gloria Romero, the California state senator, is backing a bill that would drop the yellow, red and gray mineral from the state’s affections, claiming that its association with asbestos portrays a negative image. The bill that aims to discredit the mineral is gaining support quickly, much to the chagrin of local geologists.

“[Serpentine] contains the deadly mineral chrysotile asbestos,” Romero says, “a known carcinogen, exposure to which increases the risk of the cancer mesothelioma.”

Many geologists disagree with the movement, claiming that the mineral is far from dangerous and that the symbolic gesture of bringing Serpentine down a notch would be based on a misunderstanding. Serpentine, they say, is actually a family of twenty or so similar minerals, very few of which contain any asbestos. The types that do contain asbestos aren’t dangerous, either, they say. They have only a tiny amount of chrysotile asbestos, a type of asbestos of which exposure to in small amounts hasn’t even been linked to disease.

Fibrous asbestos, on the other hand, certainly causes a wide variety of serious and even fatal diseases. The size and power of the asbestos industry, however, has slowed the advance of negative sentiments concerning the dangerous mineral. While many nations including the entire European Union have completely banned asbestos, the United States continues to allow the substance’s use while applying strict safe-handling regulations.

The EPA attempted to ban asbestos in the USA back in the 1980′s, but the decision was overturned by the powerful asbestos industry within just a few years. Campaigns such as publicly denouncing Serpentine, California’s state rock, may help to increase public awareness of asbestos’s dangers, and turn the tides on still raging political and legal asbestos battles.

To many geologists, however, the movement simply doesn’t make sense.

“Serpentine is a very beautiful rock,” says the emeritus professor of geology at UCLA, John Rosenfeld.

“Holding the rock is not a problem and it’s nothing you should be concerned about. It’s part of the history of California, noticed by the early settlers of this state. It’s a beautiful stone and shouldn’t be removed.”

The Ohio Supreme Court recently ruled against a prosecutor representing a Mrs. Boley who passed away due to the “take home” effects of her husband’s work. Her husband, an employee of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, allegedly introduced dangerous asbestos fibers into their home which he was originally exposed to at his workplace.

Asbestos has been known to cause an array of serious health complications since the early 1920′s. While it has taken nearly a century to cut through the smoke-screen of misinformation deployed by a profitable and booming asbestos industry, it’s now well understood and accepted that asbestos fibers cause several different respiratory ailments, asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma, an aggressive and terminal cancer.

Asbestos has been completely banned throughout the European Union, is closely regulated and controlled by the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States, and is recognized by the World Health Organization as a toxic workplace hazard that causes terminal illnesses.

While litigation against companies which expose their employees to asbestos fibers is generally becoming more and more successful, the Ohio Supreme Court drew the line at “take home” asbestos contamination.

The prosecutors of the Boley versus Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company case were aware that Ohio law limits a company’s liability for a hazardous workplace to the injuries or damages which occur in the workplace itself, but believed that the law would not apply to the “take home” effects of asbestos.

The Ohio Supreme Court did not agree, stating:

“When the provisions of [Ohio Revised Code] 2307.941 are read in their entirety, it is evident that the General Assembly intended the phrase ‘exposure to asbestos on the premises owner’s property,’ as used in R.C. 2307.941(A), to refer to the location of the asbestos to which an individual is exposed, not the location of the exposure…

“Thus, R.C. 2307.941(A) applies to all tort actions for asbestos claims brought against premises owners relating to exposure originating from asbestos on the premises owner’s property, and R.C. 2307.941(A)(1) applies to preclude a premises owner’s liability for any asbestos exposure that does not occur at the owner’s property.”

After four years of deliberation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the city of Marco Island, Florida, and a Marco Island contractor have come to an agreement concerning a Clean Air Act infringement involving asbestos. Quality Enterprises, a contractor hired to improve Marco Island’s sewer systems among other things, came under investigation by the EPA after an anonymous tip alleged that they were improperly handling old asbestos laden piping.

Asbestos has been linked with a variety of illnesses and ailments from respiratory complications to aggressive, terminal cancers such as mesothelioma. The effects of asbestos were downplayed dramatically for nearly a century, a feat accomplished by a rich, successful chemical and sealant industry backed by manufacturing needs and defense contracts. Asbestos, well known for its abundance and its insulating and fireproofing properties, was used in a wide variety of industries throughout much of the twentieth century.

The EPA’s decision in the 1980′s to completely ban the substance in the United States was overturned by the asbestos industry’s most powerful companies in a matter of years. The following decades saw the development of state and federal restrictions intended to safeguard industrial employees and the general public from asbestos exposure, restrictions which continue to be developed and enforced to this day.

Contractors such as Quality Enterprises which work with asbestos contaminated materials are required to acquire special licenses and abide by safe handling regulations. The investigation which followed the anonymous EPA tip-off found that the Marco Island contractor failed to follow several regulations, potentially creating a hazardous workplace for its employees and placing Marco Island residents in danger.

The violations of the Clean Air Act included improper inspection of an asbestos containing area, failure to remove asbestos materials before aggravating waste debris, failure to provide a properly trained asbestos hazard staff member on-site, and failure to dispose of asbestos as quickly as practically possible. Additionally, Quality Enterprises failed to wet the asbestos materials before handling them, a violation of state safe handling regulations.

While the EPA has required neither the city of Marco Island or Quality Enterprises to admit guilt to the Clean Air Act infractions, Quality Enterprises has been fined $82,772.

The chairman of the Marco Island City Council, Frank Recker, was happy with the outcome, saying that he just wanted it to be clear that the city wasn’t responsible. “It was Dr. [interim City Manager Jim] Riviere’s and my mission,” he said, “to get the world to understand we didn’t think the city was financially responsible for anything.”

While bodily harm, injury and even death due to extreme heat, lack of breathable oxygen, falling debris and collapsing buildings are all risks which firefighters are well aware of, it turns out that there may be less obvious and equally dangerous risks associated with their heroic work.

Firefighters face countless toxins due to the smoky, superheated conditions in which they work. It’s already been discovered that many firefighters are subjected to airborne asbestos, formaldehyde, and more on the job, but research regarding the long term affects of such poisons has never been conducted.

A new study which the NIOSH, or National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, is embarking on hopes to change all of that. Working with the United States Fire Administration, the ambitious new undertaking will collect data from nearly 18,000 current and retired firefighters to learn more about their long term health conditions.

One of the facets of the new research will aim to better understand the risks to firefighters posed by airborne asbestos fibers.

It’s long been established that asbestos fibers cause an array of devastating illnesses and conditions. Respiratory complications, asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma are a few of the dangerous and even terminal illnesses caused by the dangerous mineral.

Unfortunately, asbestos saw plenty of use as fire retardant insulation throughout the twentieth century, meaning that its presence is a fairly commonplace occurrence for most firefighters. The tiny asbestos fibers cannot be burned up, so instead become whisked away in the incredible heat of the fire, lacing the already dangerous smoke and broiling hot air with an unseen, and often unmitigated, danger.

Mesothelioma, one of the most dangerous diseases caused by accidental inhalation of asbestos fibers, can take decades to develop after contamination occurs. The disease develops as the tissues around the lungs and other organs begin to scar as a reaction to the presence of microscopic asbestos fibers. This scarring, in time, could develop into malignant tumors that spread to the body’s vital organs causing swelling, pain, and eventually death. The presence of asbestos fibers in burning buildings could mean that firefighters face serious, daunting risks to their health far beyond the dangers of putting out fires, dangers that could haunt them beyond their retirement.

The NIOSH working together with the USFA hope to learn more about the unseen dangers of firefighting to help protect local heroes after their day’s work is done.