The American Public Health Association, also known as APHA, called on congress for a ban on the use of asbestos products at the end of their annual meeting last month. Almost all of the 12,000 health professionals that were present agreed with the proposed measure.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency issued the Asbestos Ban and Phase Out Rule more than 20 years ago in 1989, but it was overturned just two years later in 1991 by the rich and powerful asbestos industry lobby. Since then, more than 40 developed countries across the world have completely banned the production and use of asbestos products. The United States and Canada remain as two surprising examples of nations that have thus far failed to completely protect the health interests of their populations in regards to asbestos exposure.

In the United States, asbestos continues to be imported for use in consumer products, construction materials, and some industrial and fabrication operations like the manufacture of brake pads. Last year, the USA actually saw an increase of asbestos imports of almost ten percent. Canada, on the other hand, is one of the last remaining developed nations that continues to mine and mill asbestos and holds the status of the world’s second largest asbestos producer, with Russia as the world’s first.

Due to the decades between the 1940’s and 1980’s when asbestos use was in its prime, much of the United States’ infrastructure is inundated with the dangerous material. Concrete, pipes, roofing tiles, flooring, drywall, insulation, vehicle paneling and other materials constructed throughout the 1980’s made extensive use of asbestos as a cheap, effective base for highly insulating, fireproof materials.

Unfortunately, the presence of asbestos fibers poses a serious threat to human health, causing diseases like asbestosis and mesothelioma with consequences ranging from respiratory difficulties to the development of terminal malignant tumors. Asbestos related diseases can take several decades to become diagnosable, which means that an asbestos ban may not visibly reduce their diagnoses for several generations.

The ban of asbestos by the European Union, and strict regulations regarding its use and safe handling in the United States and Canada dictate that the vast majority of asbestos materials are used in poorer, developing nations. India and China are both large scale importers of asbestos products, and continue to use pressed asbestos boards in the construction of homes and other buildings. A total ban of Asbestos in the United States could go a long way not only in protecting the health of our population, but in setting a respectable example for developing nations.

Leigh Carlisle became the UK’s youngest mesothelioma victim in August of last year. It’s still undetermined exactly how or when she was exposed to the deadly asbestos fibers that caused her death. Mesothelioma is often thought of as a disease diagnosed exclusively in the elderly, but the fact is that asbestos was used as an insulator and fire retardant in new construction until around the turn of the century. Asbestos fibers continue to turn up in residences, schools and even hospitals today, and while efforts continue to clean up and isolate asbestos contamination in the workplace and elsewhere, mesothelioma is far from “yesterday’s concern”.

Last year, Leigh Carlisle said “I used to take a shortcut across a yard in Failsworth on my way to primary school. I know that men working there cut asbestos sheets and handled asbestos materials in the yard, but I had no idea that by walking through the yard I could have inadvertently got cancer.”

While the exact source of asbestos that caused Leigh’s mesothelioma was never determined, the fact that the dangerous fibers were being used and even handled like a safe construction material just fifteen years ago is disconcerting.

Mesothelioma has an incredibly long latency, that is, the time it takes between exposure to asbestos fibers and the development of the cancer. With a latency between a few years and a few decades, we can expect to see mesothelioma diagnoses far after asbestos exposure is no longer considered a present danger – which is certainly not the case.

Leigh Carlisle died from mesothelioma when she was just twenty eight years old. Her family and loved ones were shocked and devastated.

“After the shock subsided we were left with the question how did Leigh come into contact with asbestos,” Leigh’s mother said, “we had the massive task of retracing her life. It meant talking to friends, family, neighbors – anyone who had come into contact with Leigh. We did our best to explore every avenue and possibility. That question still hangs over me and the family.”

Investigations never indicated an exact source of Leigh’s asbestos exposure and no one was held accountable for her disease and subsequent death. Her mother is not giving up, however, and says that she will fight to learn the truth about how her daughter contracted mesothelioma.

“We’re being told to get on with our lives and that we might never know how Leigh died,” she said, “we can’t be expected to be satisfied with this. We are a grieving family. We will always be grieving for Leigh. I owe it to my daughter to keep looking for what caused her cancer and I will not stop until my last breath.”

When the story of asbestos and its lethal health effects finally gelled, several companies filed bankruptcy in order to deal with liability issues. Owens Corning was one of them, and was also one of the firms to set up a multibillion dollar trust for the purpose of compensating victims of asbestosis and mesothelioma.

Since starting in late October, 2006, the trust has paid $390 million on 70,000 claims submitted by people — primarily construction workers, ship-builders, and others — who developed lung diseases from working around asbestos-containing insulation and other products once made by Owens Corning and its Fibreboard subsidiary.

As part of Owens Corning’s six-year bankruptcy case, the trust assumed responsibility for compensating victims. OC kicked in a multibillion-dollar pot of cash and stock to shed the liability. The trust has received an additional 256,000 claims and faces new demands for compensation daily.

Most payments have gone to people who settled with Owens Corning years ago but whose settlements were tied up by the firm’s bankruptcy filing in October of 2000. Just $16 million has gone toward 2,500 newer claims, about 9 percent of which involved people with cancer.

The irony in this story is the fact that people who have contracted mesothelioma from exposure to asbestos have a life expectancy of twelve to eighteen months. One attorney in Tennessee filed a number of claims twelve months ago and has yet to see any of his clients receive a dime. The problem is simply the sheer volume of claims to be processed.