Mesothelioma Not Enough to Blacklist Asbestos
The 141 member nations of the international Rotterdam Convention have once again failed to add asbestos to their list of banned chemicals, much to the disappointment of mesothelioma patients, doctors and researchers worldwide. Asbestos has long been linked to the deadly cancer mesothelioma. It causes an estimated 2,500 new cases of mesothelioma in the U.S. each year and tens of thousands of cases elsewhere in the world. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 125 million people are exposed to asbestos in the workplace and more than 107,000 die each year from mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases. Although the mineral is now regulated (though not banned) in the U.S., many third-world countries use it as a cheap building material with little…