Health Canada is not publishing the report on the risk of cancer associated with chrysotile asbestos complied by an expert panel it assembled in 2007. The report has been made available through an Access to Information Act request from the media. Experts involved in the panel have raised some concerns in this regard, as the usual practice is for Health Canada to publish any studies that it funds on its website. The controversy over Canada’s exporting of asbestos to developing countries has been ongoing, and this recent report illustrates the divide between scientific opinion and the government of Canada’s position on asbestos. One expert on the panel stated that he “would be reluctant to work with Health Canada again because he feels the government “violated” an understanding that the work would be published in a timely fashion on a government website.” The report concludes that there is a strong relationship of exposure with lung cancer, a problematic finding for Canada’s asbestos industry.
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Thu, Apr 23, 2009
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