Asbestos victims and anti-asbestos activists demand worldwide ban
Anti-asbestos activists and asbestos victims from many countries united their forces to call for a worldwide ban on the hazardous building material and for companies that use it to be brought to justice, writes AFP on Tuesday. Asbestos, which is a cause for fatal illness, was banned in the European Union in 2005. Despite of the ban, asbestos is still used in many developing countries, but not only there. In countries of “old Europe”, such as Italy, and in emerging markets in Eastern Europe, including in new EU-member states, asbestos is still used despite of health danger.
The activists met in Italy's northern city of Turin. They reiterated calls for the dangerous fibrous material to be banned across the world and for an “end to impunity for companies that use it."
About 6,000 people have joined in the largest class action suit ever on asbestos contamination which opened in Turin in December, writes AFP's Mathieu Gorse. The suit involves shareholders of a construction company accused of responsibility for the deaths of more than 2,000 Italians from asbestos-related diseases.
The Turin meeting, organized by Ban Asbestos, backed a push for an end to the "impunity of those responsible for the world catastrophe of asbestos," said Ban Asbestos France spokeswoman Annie Thebaud-Mony.
Symptoms of asbestos contamination such as lung cancer and fibrosis normally do not appear for some 20 years, according to the source.
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