today appealed to federal Health Minister, Leona Aglukkaq<\/a>, to take action on the increasing number of cases of asbestos-related disease occurring in Canada.<\/p>\n\u201cEach of these cases represents terrible heartbreak and suffering for the person and their family,\u201d said Heidi von Palleske, whose father and mother both died from mesothelioma from having been exposed to chrysotile asbestos from the Jeffrey mine (formerly the Johns Manville mine) in Quebec. \u201cVictims of asbestos are demanding that the Minister of Health take action. We feel abandoned and betrayed by our government.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShocking new figures, released by Statistics Canada, show a relentless rise in the number of Canadians with asbestos-related disease,\u201d stated Dr Fernand Turcotte, professor emeritus of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Laval Univeristy. \u201cIn the past 15 years, the number of new cases of mesothelioma – a deadly disease known only to be caused by asbestos – has almost doubled from 276 cases in 1992 to 512 cases in 2007, the latest year for which statistics are available. For each case of mesothelioma, it is conservatively estimated that there are two or more cases of lung cancer caused by asbestos. This means that, in 2007, over 1,536 Canadians became victims of deadly asbestos-related disease. This is a tragedy of colossal proportions. It is a tragedy that the Minister of Health must address,\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe demand that Minister Aglukkaq stop hiding her head in the sand and start acting like a Minister of Health,\u201d said Stacy Cattran, who lost her father to asbestos. \u201cShe should be protecting the health of Canadians, not protecting the asbestos industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat makes these numbers particularly tragic is that they should never have happened,\u201d said Kathleen Ruff, senior human rights adviser, Rideau Institute. \u201cWe have known for decades that asbestos kills and all use of asbestos should end. But politics have trumped science and the asbestos industry, to this day, maintains a stranglehold over government policy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Canadian Cancer Society and Canada\u2019s leading medical organisations have asked you take action to ban the use and export of asbestos, to prevent further asbestos harm to Canadians and to create sustainable, healthy jobs for the asbestos mining region,\u201d said Dr Kapil Khatter, former president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease listen to Canada\u2019s medical experts and Canada\u2019s asbestos victims,\u201d said Cathy Conrad, whose father died earlier this year from mesothelioma. \u201cDo the right thing for Canadians.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OCTOBER 13, 2011 Medical doctors, health advocates and asbestos victims today appealed to federal Health Minister, Leona Aglukkaq, to take action on the increasing number of cases of asbestos-related disease occurring in Canada. \u201cEach of these cases represents terrible heartbreak and suffering for the person and their family,\u201d said Heidi von Palleske, whose father and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[326,154,48],"class_list":["post-1245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asbestos","tag-asbestos","tag-asbestos-victims","tag-health-minister-leona-aglukkaq"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1245"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1250,"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245\/revisions\/1250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightoncanada.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}