Canada: Health Canada amends information on its website
Subscribers will be aware of Canada's often shocking relationship with asbestos – from mining and exporting it until relatively recently, to underplaying its toxicity. Federal department Health Canada has recently made changes to how its website describes the health risks of asbestos. These are being welcomed by activists, who are still arguing for a total ban on the use of asbestos. Anteriormente a página dizia: "quando inalado em quantidade significante, fibras de asbestos podem causar asbestose (uma cicatriz dos pulmões que dificulta a respiração), mesoteliona (um câncer raro do revestimento do tórax e da cavidade abdominal) e câncer de pulmão" "When inhaled in significant quantities, asbestos fibres can cause asbestosis (a scaring of the lungs which makes breathing difficult), mesothelioma (a rare cancer of the lining of the chest or abdominal cavity) and lung cancer."
A nova página diz: "Asbestos, se inalado, pode causar câncer e outra doença - eliminando a referência ao qualificativo "quantidade significante""Asbestosis, if inhaled, can cause cancer and other diseases" - eliminating the qualifying "significant quantities" reference. Ela também não faz mais distinção entretipos de fibras. ela tinha tido antes que o asbesto crisotila, o tipo que foi mais extraído em Minas no Quebec, é menos potente e faria menos mal" (It also no longer makes a distinction between types of asbestos. It had previously said chrysotile asbestos, the type that had been mined in Quebec, is "less potent" and does less damage.)
Jim Brophy, formerly of Sarnia's Occupational Health Clinic for Ontario Workers, and currently an adjunct professor at the University of Windsor, said "What I really think what Health Canada should be doing is issuing an apology to the Canadian public for failing to enact public health policies that would have protected thousands and thousands of workers and their families."
Read more: Advocates in Sarnia calling for ban on asbestos use in Canada The Observer
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