Asbestos, Quebec, a town known around the world as one of the final footholds of the asbestos mining industry, has declined to permit the Canadian Cancer Society’s “Relay for Life” walkathon to take place within their city limits. The decision came after the Canadian Cancer Society sent a formal letter to Quebec’s Premier, Jean Charest, asking him not to approve a loan that would keep the Jeffrey Mine – an asbestos mining facility in Asbestos – in operation.

Many of Asbestos’s residents are hoping that the loan is approved, counting on the several hundred jobs it will create to help alleviate the town’s spiraling economy. To them, the Canadian Cancer Society’s position is a direct attack on their livelihood.

“People have stopped me to say, ‘We don’t want to participate in that event anymore’,” says Hugues Grimard, the Mayor of Asbestos, “[and] we’re giving [those citizens] our support.”

The municipality has decided to show support for the town’s mining operation, the heart of its remaining economic vitality, by preventing the Relay for Life from taking place in their streets.

“We want to work with our partners and not with our detractors,” said Grimard.

The Canadian Cancer Society’s letter to Jean Charest was one among many from different organizations around the world. Asbestos, Quebec, and those that support its asbestos mining industry have come under fire from activists, doctors, health organizations and cancer institutes all over the world. The town houses one of the last asbestos mines in operation, making it one of the worlds largest suppliers of a mineral which causes a wide variety of gruesome and fatal diseases.

Quebec officials maintain that asbestos is entirely safe when properly handled, and that its dangers are due solely to irresponsible and negligent use on the part of the consumer, not the supplier. The majority of Canadian exports, however, are delivered to developing nations that don’t have strict asbestos safe-handling regulations in place, a fact that many activists say the Canadian suppliers are taking advantage of. Many developed nations including the entirety of the EU, for instance, have completely banned the mineral.

Despite the lack of support, the Canadian Cancer Society is respectfully holding their position.

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

The citizens of Asbestos, Quebec, aren’t budging either.

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

RPM International, Inc., a company whose subsidiaries have come under fire for exposing their employees and consumers to dangerous asbestos fibers, is attempting a controversial bankruptcy filing in order to handle a downpour of asbestos related lawsuits. The company is seeking a chapter 11 bankruptcy for both Specialty Products Holding Corp. and Bondex International., two of its divisions whose unsafe work environments and negligent product distribution have been the cause of tragedy for many individuals and their families.

Under a chapter 11 bankruptcy a corporation’s officers do not lose control of their company. Instead, the company is reorganized in a manner deemed suitable to allocate available funds to creditors, while at the same time coming under protection of an automatic stay that prevents further litigation and collection attempts. This reorganization often results in the creation of a trust to settle existing debts. The corporation in question transfers assets into a trust, and individuals or companies who have a claim against the corporation must then apply for a settlement paid from that trust.

This strategy helps to keep liability pay-outs under control, referring victims of the company’s negligence to a regulated fund application process instead of undergoing the more volatile alternative of settling claims in a court of law. Other companies responsible for exposing their employees or consumers to dangerous asbestos fibers have created similar trusts to slow down and regulate settlement pay-outs, a plan which allows them to continue operating for profit. In one recent case, Federal-Mogul Corp formed a trust that paid more than $9 billion in asbestos settlements.

RPM’s bankruptcy filings have come on the heels of more than 10,000 pending asbestos lawsuits made against the paint and chemical company and its subsidiaries. Having already paid more than $80 million for asbestos claims in the last five years, RPM International, Inc. hopes to form a trust through the chapter 11 bankruptcies that would be used to settle with new claimants, a strategy that could protect the company from financial collapse.

If successful, the bankruptcy filings could mean difficulty and delay for affected individuals and their families. Victims of mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis and other asbestos related disease caused by RPM’s products have historically filed lawsuits against the company to cover their medical costs and losses. If the chapter 11 bankruptcies are approved, those same victims will be forced into a slow, regulated fund application process that protects the company from financial damage.

Bernard Josefsberg, the School Superintendent at the Anna C. Scott school in Leonia, New Jersey, was severely admonished by parents of his students after he failed to inform them of an upcoming asbestos removal project. The asbestos removal, which took place around the middle of last month, was conducted over a weekend. Students returned to class as normal on the following Monday, which apparently alarmed parents after they learned of the asbestos abatement project.

Parents sent angry e-mails to the Board of Education, some saying that the school was intentionally covering up health risks and keeping parents in the dark. Many parents who reacted strongly to the unannounced asbestos project did not attend the meetings Josefsberg called to address the issue, whose purposes were primarily to apologize for a lack of communication. Josefsberg, who admitted openly to failing to communicate effectively, maintained that the project was conducted according to state and federal regulations and that the students were not subjected to any health risks. The air in the school, he said, was tested for asbestos particles before the children were allowed to return to school on the Monday following the project.

The Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act, or AHERA, which is a provision of the Toxic Substances Control Act passed in 1986 outlines the EPA’s regulations concerning asbestos abatement projects in U.S. schools. The act requires that schools undergo periodic asbestos testing, develop a plan to address asbestos removal, and notify parents, teachers and employees of developments within that plan on an annual basis. The act also requires maintenance staff to undergo asbestos awareness training and mandates that only properly licensed contractors can remove asbestos from school buildings.

Asbestos exposure has been conclusively linked to a wide variety of serious and even fatal illnesses such as asbestosis and mesothelioma, which is why Josefsberg became the target of such venomous criticism. According to Scott Higgins, an ABS Environmental spokesperson who supported Josefsberg in the meetings called with the school children’s parents, the project was completed according to state and federal protocol and posed no health risks to either the children, the staff or anyone else.

To ease the parents concerns, however, a construction safety committee has been formed from school staff whose responsibilities will include keeping families informed of upcoming construction or renovation projects at the school. Additionally, the remainder of the asbestos abatement will not be performed until summer vacation.

Last week United States Senator Max Baucus from Montana received the Bruce Vento Hope Builder Award at the International Symposium on Malignant Mesothelioma. The award was named after the late Minnesota Congressman who was killed by malignant mesothelioma ten years ago, and is presented to leaders in the campaign for improved education, improved treatments, and a search for a cure to the rare cancer. Senator Max Baucus has been a front line supporter of mesothelioma research and education, and has had first hand experience with the ravages of the disease due to the tragedy in Libby, Montana which has affected so many lives.

Libby is the home of one of the longest surviving asbestos mines in the nation, and was declared a hazardous materials emergency site years ago by the Environmental Protection Agency when investigating agencies found asbestos contamination was rampant throughout the small town. Piles of processed asbestos refuse were deposited at random throughout Libby, and both homes and businesses were found to be contaminated with the toxic asbestos dust that causes mesothelioma, a cancer of the tissues that line the body’s vital organs.

Libby may very well be the largest asbestos contamination site in the United States, and several ongoing studies are working to determine the scale of the damage inflicted on the community.

The Bruce Vento Award was presented in the midst of the convention where more than 300 families affected by mesothelioma, doctors, scientists, and researchers from various fields connected with the disease met to exchange information and support. The International Symposium on Malignant Mesothelioma was hosted by the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation, a non-profit organization that has funded nearly $6.5 million in mesothelioma related research.

While the dangers of asbestos have been well known by some for nearly a century, the awareness of the general public has been rapidly rising over the last several decades due to the slow crumble of the asbestos industry and the rise of asbestos related illnesses. Asbestos related cancer can take decades to develop from the time of exposure, causing a delayed rise in diagnoses of the disease. Today, some two thousand people are diagnosed with mesothelioma every year, and diagnoses are expected to continue rising until beyond the year 2030.

Muskingam County, Ohio, plans to donate a large tract of land for the construction of Zane State’s new science and technology center in exchange for the funding necessary to demolish the land’s current buildings. The land, near Newark Road, currently accommodates the Muskingam County Home, but the buildings were labeled as unstable and potentially dangerous by a structural engineer just three years ago. At the time, a recommendation was made to vacate the buildings within five years to ensure the safety of its inhabitants.

County commissioners have taken steps to temporarily move operations of the Muskingam County Home to a new location, the former site of the Ohio District Council nursing facility on East Pike. While meetings have been conducted to discuss long term solutions for the home and its inhabitants, no decisive conclusions have been made as of yet. The county must still decide if a new building will be constructed for the home, whether a private company should be introduced to manage the facility, or if the entire operation should be sold to private investors.

Zane State’s proposal to assist with the demolition costs was providential regardless of the ultimate fate of Muskingam County Home. The old building houses plenty of raw materials which contain dangerous asbestos fibers, making demolition a complicated and expensive task whose proper execution could impact the land’s future residents.

Asbestos, a toxic mineral which was used throughout the twentieth century in a variety of industrial and commercial applications, can easily contaminate large areas as a result of improperly performed demolitions or renovations. Aggravating or disturbing asbestos containing construction products can result in airborne, microscopic asbestos fibers which could eventually settle into the land surrounding a work site and constitute a health hazard for future generations.

Federal and state regulations require specially licensed contractors to carefully remove a building’s asbestos containing materials prior to demolition or renovation efforts. These contractors use specific equipment and techniques to minimize contamination and safely remove and dispose of any asbestos products.

While the process can be very expensive, the alternative is risking the development of asbestosis, mesothelioma or other dangerous asbestos related diseases in a building or work site’s future inhabitants.

The Muskingam County Home demolition will run some $130,000, a cost which Zane State is happy to help with in order to expand its campus and serve new students. Zane State’s planned addition, The Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine Center, will be comprised of a 40,000 square foot building seated on the current Muskingam County Home’s eight acres of land. The new facility will help to educate as much as 500 more students annually in a variety of important, technology centered fields.

This week in Ottawa, Canada, local woman Alissa Boardley will participate in the city’s annual race weekend. Each year the city hosts a series of races followed by a marathon that raise money to help develop the cures for a number of diseases. This year there will be over thirty eight thousand participants running for different causes. Alissa will be joined by a team of twenty individuals, dubbed as the Mesothoners, all running to raise money for the victims of an aggressive cancer known as mesothelioma. Collectively the team has raised over $5,000 for the Canadian Mesothelioma Foundation. Boardley says that she knew very little about the devastating disease until her father was diagnosed with it just one year ago.

With anywhere from two hundred to three hundred new cases in Canada being diagnosed each year, and over two thousand cases in North America identified annually, mesothelioma is becoming a more and more serious issue. Unfortunately, the disease can remain dormant for over twenty five years before its symptoms become apparent. This latency period can make mesothelioma very difficult to detect in its early stages, and often leads to a late diagnosis and a grim prognosis.

Just a few miles north of where the races will take place, there is a small village in the province of Quebec called Ville d’Asbestos. The town has a population of roughly six thousand citizens, many of which rely on a local asbestos mine for employment. The Quebec asbestos mining operation is one of the last of its kind in the world; it exports vast quantities of asbestos products to developing nations where anti-asbestos laws have yet to be passed. Though the citizens of this town have been aware for over sixty years of the controversy surrounding prolonged asbestos exposure, the mine remains in operation and is even planning new developments. Asbestos, Quebec highlights the need for redoubling efforts to educate the public about the dangers associated with asbestos products and the dire consequences of contamination.

Races and events like the one being held in Ottawa, Canada are helping to spread awareness all over the world and giving hope to victims of asbestos exposure and their families. As the races commence, many of the streets in Canada’s capitol will be closed off, drawing crowds that will number in the thousands. The courage displayed by Alissa Boardley, who is running in support of her father, is a testament to the bravery and determination that thousands of North American families show as the battle against Mesothelioma continues.