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:: Thursday, September 27, 2007 ::
The Chrysotile King: The last gasps of asbestos - By COLIN CAMPBELL, Macleans.ca That the industy has survived this long is in itself amazing. Asbestos has been under attack since the late 1960s and early '70s, after it became widely known that the handling of a commonly used variety, called amphibole asbestos, caused deadly lung cancer. The industry peaked around 1973, then began its long collapse. Amphiboles, which were imported into Canada and not mined here, were banned. But it remains a threat to this day in old buildings -- from Parliament Hill to Toronto's subway tunnels -- and so, its killer image lives on. In the late 1990s, the Canadian industry was hit with a French ban on asbestos imports, and in 2005 came a sweeping European ban. Markets in North America in the past five years have shrivelled and shipments within Canada have dried up.
posted 6:52 AM :: reference link ::
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