Human Rights Online Philippines

Labor and Environmental Groups Push for a Stronger Anti-Asbestos Policy to Protect Human Health

There is an urgent need to modify and improve the Philippines’ twenty-one year old asbestos policy regulation on the manufacture and use of asbestos and asbestos containing materials in the country, said a confederation of labor unions and a coalition of environmental organizations.

According to the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) and the Ecowaste Coalition, the moribund Chemical Control Order (CCO) for Asbestos issued by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) on January 6, 2000 needs serious improvement in its mandate to protect the public in the light of its passive enforcement, growing non-compliance to the regulation, and the unfettered importation into the country of raw asbestos and materials and products containing asbestos.

The groups noted that the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) have long considered all types of asbestos, including the most common chrysotile or white asbestos, as carcinogens. Health experts have said “no safe level can be proposed for asbestos because a threshold is not known to exist.” The most common diseases caused by asbestos exposure are asbestosis, lung and ovary cancer, scarring of the lung lining, and mesothelioma.

Read complete article @ecowastecoalition.blogspot.com

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