OPEN LETTER TO DR KELLIE LEITCH FROM ASBESTOS VICTIMS
September 12, 2011
Dr Kellie Leitch, MD, MBA, FRCS (C), MP
House of Commons, Ottawa, Ontario
Dear Dr Leitch:
We are people who have an asbesto-related disease or who have lived through the tragedy of watching someone we love die a painful death from asbestos. What made the suffering even more unbearable was that it did not need to happen. The medical evidence was clear decades ago that all asbestos is deadly and that all use of asbestos must stop.
Yet the Canadian asbestos industry, aided and abetted by your government, continues to deny the scientific evidence and peddles this terrible carcinogen in developing countries, cynically telling people there that it won’t harm them.
The Canadian Medical Association has demanded that your government stop this “unethical and shameful behaviour”.
We have appealed to you repeatedly to end your complicity with asbestos and asked you to put you medical duty ahead of your political ambition.
You have callously met our appeals with silence.
Your medical peers across Canada and around the world have challenged you to respect your medical Code of Ethics and to stop supporting the asbestos industry’s deadly discredited propaganda.
You have contemptuously met the profoundly serious ethical challenge from your peers with silence.
We have learned via a newspaper article that you are apparently choosing to support continued export of asbestos to harm people overseas, who have virtually no way of protecting themselves or their loved ones.
You may not care about the people you are harming overseas, but we do. As asbestos victims ourselves, we will not sit idly by while you aid and abet the creation of more asbestos victims amongst the poorest and most unprotected people on the planet, who don’t even have medical assistance or pain killers to help them when they die terrible deaths from asbestos.
If you choose to continue to support medical misinformation and to support asbestos, we ask that you hand in your medical licence and cease being a physician, since you are in violation of the most fundamental standard required of all medical doctors: do no harm.
We ask you to show courtesy to us, who are suffering from asbestos-related disease and whose loved ones have been killed by asbestos, and that you send your immediate and detailed response to our heartfelt appeal.
Please respond to Stacy Cattran, scattran@gmail.com, 519-341-3642
SIGNED:
VOICES OF WORKERS WITH ASBESTOS-RELATED DISEASE FROM HAVING BEEN EXPOSED TO ASBESTOS:
Julius Hava-Bigauskas, Sault Ste Marie, ON: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Howard Willems, Saskatoon, SK: I have mesothelioma from being exposed to asbestos.
Bob Davies, Nanaimo, BC: I was exposed to asbestos at work and now have asbestosis.
Ravi Mohite, Mumbai, Maharasthra, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Muthuswami Munion, Ahmedabad, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Maruthi Hanumanth, Ahmedabad, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Subramani Gaundar, Ahmedabad, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Sumersingh S. Rathod, Ahmedabad, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Nagendra Pandey, Ahmedabad, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Durai Swami Munion, Ahmedabad, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Chinnappan Chinna kannu, Ahmedabad, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Murgeshion Paria swami, Ahmedabad, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Konda Pani, Ahmedabad, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Paria swami, Ahmedabad, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Narayan S Ambekar, Mumbai, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Suryakant P Desai, Mumbai, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Raghunath D Mhadallkar, Mumbai, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Manohar D Dugade, Mumbai, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Cajetan Fernandes, Mumbai, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Yashwant G Teje, Mumbai, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Anant R Ghag, Mumbai, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Shivaji S More, Mumbai, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Sudhakar R Sawant, Mumbai, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Michale Pontis, Mumbai, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Ashok D bhalerao, Mumbai, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Jinnu A Poojari, Mumbai, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Damodar V Thakur, Mumbai, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Balaram M Kadam, Mumbai, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Dashrath D Kajrolkar, Mumbai, India: I am dying from being exposed to asbestos.
VOICES OF PEOPLE WITH A FAMILY MEMBER, WHO HAS OR HAD AN ASBESTOS-RELATED DISEASE:
Stacy Cattran, Ontario: My father died from being exposed to asbestos
Heidi Von Palleske, Cobourg: My father died from being exposed to asbestos. My mother died from being exposed to asbestos.
Cathy Conrad, Nova Scotia: My father died from being exposed to asbestos.
Leah Nielsen, Lewiston, Utah: My father died from being exposed to asbestos.
Michaela Keyserlingk, Ottawa: My husband died from being exposed to asbestos.
Jackie Coulbeck, Mooretown, Ontario: My husband died from being exposed to asbestos.
Cavanagh Matmor, Cobourg: My grand-father died from being exposed to asbestos. My grand-mother died from being exposed to asbestos.
Colleen Chapman, Ajax: My twin sister died from being exposed to asbestos.
Sophie Hough, Cobourg: My grand- father died from being exposed to asbestos. My grand-mother died from being exposed to asbestos.
Brad Coulbeck, Windsor, Ontario: My father died from being exposed to asbestos.
Daniel Matmor, Nova Scotia: My father-in-law died from being exposed to asbestos. My mother-in-law died from being exposed to asbestos.
John Nielsen, Lewiston, Utah: My father-in-law died from being exposed to asbestos.
William Nielsen, Lewiston, Utah: My grandpa died from being exposed to asbestos.
Andrew Nielsen, Lewiston, Utah: My grandpa died from being exposed to asbestos.
Sheena Svitich, Kimberley, BC: My father died from being exposed to asbestos.
Linda Reinstein, Los Angeles, US: My husband died from being exposed to asbestos.
Emily Reinstein, Los Angeles, US: My father died from being exposed to asbestos.
Sandra Kinart, Sarnia: My husband died from being exposed to asbestos. Two of my brothers-in-law died from being exposed to asbestos. My uncle died from being exposed to asbestos. My aunt died from being exposed to asbestos. My cousin’s spouse died from being exposed to asbestos. Two of my friends died from being exposed to asbestos.
Lisa Waller, Sarnia, Ontario: My father died from being exposed to asbestos. Two of my uncles died from being exposed to asbestos. My great-aunt died from being exposed to asbestos.
Shari Scarpelli, Sarnia, Ontario: My father died from being exposed to asbestos. My father-in-law died from being exposed to asbestos. Two of my uncles died from being exposed to asbestos. My great aunt died from being exposed to asbestos.
Shane Kinart, Sarnia, Ontario: My father died from being exposed to asbestos. Two of my uncles died from being exposed to asbestos. My great aunt died from being exposed to asbestos.
Cheryl Orrange, Sarnia, Ontario: My husband died from being exposed to asbestos. My uncle died from being exposed to asbestos. My cousin died from being exposed to asbestos. My step-son died from being exposed to asbestos.
Carol McLaughlin, Sarnia, Ontario: My husband died from being exposed to asbestos. My brother died from being exposed to asbestos. My uncle died from being exposed to asbestos.
Rose Huggett: My husband died from being exposed to asbestos.
Antonietta Ferair: My husband died from being exposed to asbestos.
Nancy Longo: My husband died from being exposed to asbestos.
Jean Henry: My husband died from being exposed to asbestos.
Harold Kinar, Sarnia: My brother died from being exposed to asbestos.
Mark Parent, Windsor: My friends died from being exposed to asbestos.
John Millholland, Sarnia: My co-workers died from being exposed to asbestos.
Fred Scanath, Sarnia: My father-in-law died from being exposed to asbestos.
Mario Cusin, Sault Ste. Marie: My father-in-law died from being exposed to asbestos.
Bob Katzko, Vancouver Island, BC: My father died from being exposed to asbestos.
Chris Friesen, Vancouver, BC: My father died from being exposed to asbestos.
Sheryl Thompson, Vancouver Island. BC: My father-in-law died from being exposed to asbestos.
Brett Hyslop, Victoria, BC: My mother died from being exposed to asbestos.
Gail Hetherington, Parksville BC: My husband died from being exposed to asbestos.
Shelley Kehoe: My father died from being exposed to asbestos.
Sandy Turner, Ohio: My mom died from being exposed to asbestos.
Marnia Hava, Sault Ste Marie, ON: My husband is dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Tim Bigauskas, Ottawa, ON: My father is dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Peter Bigauskas, Ottawa, ON: My father is dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Phillip Chlup, Creemore, ON: My father is dying from being exposed to asbestos.
Erica Cassleman, Salmon Arm, BC: My husband died from being exposed to asbestos.
Linda Kermode, Qualicum, BC: My husband died from being exposed to asbestos.
Dinah Katzko, Parksville, BC: My husband died from being exposed to asbestos.
David Cattran, Guelph: My father-in-law died from being exposed to asbestos.
Alex Cattran, Guelph: My grandpa died from being exposed to asbestos.
September 13th, 2011 at 6:14 pm
So proud to be part of this letter….
September 22nd, 2011 at 7:24 am
Heidi, reading your piece in the Globe made me feel as though you had written about my life. My father worked at John’s Manville in Guildwood, making asbestos products. Every day when he came home I also ran to him and hugged him, getting fibers all over me. My mother washed his clothes. I had a nice chunk of asbestos fiber rock to play with, and, regularly did, pulling off the fibres and blowing them through the air. My father dies of mesothelioma and asbestosis when I was 12. My mother died of mesothelioma six years ago. Asbestos might also have played a part in one of my brother’s deaths. Who knows what might suddenly become visible on an xray. I wanted to let you know that there are other people like you who have lost multiple people to this cancer. Even now, I cry as I write this. Be strong. anita