Asbestos Accounts for Sixty Percent of Work-Related Deaths in Quebec in 2009
Friday, November 6th, 2009Asbestos is the number one cause of work-related deaths in the Canadian province of Quebec which has Canada’s only asbestos mine.
Data collected by the Quebec workers’ compensation board indicate that 104 Quebec workers died of occupational disease during the first eight months of 2009, and 61 of those deaths were asbestos-related disease, according to The Montreal Gazette.
Inhaling asbestos fibers that lodge in the lungs is closely associated with lung cancer, mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs and abdomen, and asbestosis, a chronic respiratory disease caused by scarring of the lungs.
The trend of work-related asbestos death in Quebec is expected to continue for years because asbestos-related disease often doesn’t appear until 20 to 40 years after exposure.
Canada is the fifth largest exported of asbestos in the world, and much of the product goes to parts of the world where weak or non-existent workplace safety regulations expose workers to breathing asbestos fibers. The World Health Organization estimates that 90,000 people die every year of asbestos-related lung cancer, mesothelioma and asbestosis.
