The air quality index (AQI) in the national capital on Saturday morning was recorded under 'severe' category, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) said. The AQI in the national capital was recorded at 447, which comes under the ‘severe' category. The Centre on Friday ordered a ban on non-essential construction work and plying of BS-III petrol and BS-IV diesel four-wheelers in Delhi-NCR amid worsening AQI in the region. Re-invoking curbs under Stage-III of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), the CAQM ordered a ban on non-essential construction work, stone crushing, and mining in Delhi-NCR.
Loadshedding. It’s our very own South African swear word. Whether it’s level 2 or stage 4, or possible, or definite, or possibly definite, loadshedding causes stress. Extra hours spent in traffic; dodgy connectivity; and, for the parents among us, also the challenges of getting kiddies...
Today, garment worker unions in Sri Lanka have signed a ground-breaking agreement with employer association Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF) in which both parties reached an understanding about how to address vital workplace issues for garment workers, especially during the pandemic. Clean Clothes Campaign, Labour behind the Label, Maquila Solidarity Network, Solidarity Center, War on […]
he recent project document released by Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank on the COVID-19 Emergency Response and Health Systems Preparedness Project unmasks the Banks for its complete hypocrisy
1. What we are calling for We, the under-signed organizations, aware of the severe impacts on hundreds of millions of people from the health, social and economic crises faced by countries in the global South as a result of Covid-19, urgently call for:
Pioneering Medical Treatment Program in Brazil As a result of a remarkable partnership by asbestos victims, health professionals and civil servants, an asbestos outreach initiative in São Paulo, Brazil celebrated its second anniversary in December 2019.1 Funds for this pioneering project were sourced from a court fine imposed on Brazil’s former asbestos giant Eternit, S.A. for non-compliance with a legal agreement made with the Federal Public Ministry of Labor (4th Region). The company had failed to inform the relevant authorities about asbestos victims who had waived their legal rights after receiving small amounts of compensation via extrajudicial agreements from the company. The Ministry of Labor, in consultation with the Brazilian Association of the Asbestos-Exposed (ABREA), nominated the Instituto do Coração (InCor) [Heart Institute] in São Paulo State to be the recipient of a grant R$1,697,862.13 (~US$408,000) for the purchase of equipment for pulmonary function tests and the salaries of one doctor and two technicians to perform lung function tests at an outpatients’ clinic for high risk workers, former workers or people who had experienced environmental exposures to asbestos. The InCor facility, which is open every Thursday morning, operates from room 137 and is under the supervision of pneumonologist Dr. Urbiratan de Paula Santos; patients referred by ABREA, trade unions, doctors and other outpatient units of InCor’s Pulmonology Department are eligible for free screening and treatment. This program is the first of its kind in Brazil to receive funding, albeit sourced from the imposition of judicial penalties, from its intended users. During their appointments at the asbestos outpatients’ clinic, patients answer questionnaires about their occupational history – with a focus on possible sources of workplace asbestos exposures – and overall health history including details regarding tobacco use; they are examined and undergo procedures such as chest X-rays, spirometry tests and chest computed tomography (CT) scans. Since 2017, the clinic has identified 143 patients (the 2017 cohort) with asbestos-related diseases (ARDs) of which 92% were males; 57% had worked for Eternit (in the Osasco plant), 25% for Brasilit, 7% for Precon and 11% for other companies. According to the Assessment Report of Individuals Exposed to Asbestos – Summary of Information as of December 2019: “The characteristics of the individuals seen reveal a group composed mostly of elderly people, predominantly male, with long duration and latency of asbestos exposure. The activities performed by these workers, many of whom had worked in various capacities within the industry in which they were employed, mainly involved jobs directly linked to the production line of fiber cement material, maintenance and mechanics of the machinery involved in the manufacturing processes of these products and functions related to the logistics of input and productivity of the line. In the “other” category of companies [whose workers had been diagnosed with ARDs] were those involved in the production of brakes and friction materials and those involved in thermal insulation or building maintenance of old manufacturing plants that used asbestos for electrical insulation, hot water supply networks, ovens and boilers.”2 Amongst the 2017 cohort of 143 patients: 12% were smokers, 41% ex-smokers and 47% non-smokers; the percentage of smokers/former smokers/non-smokers amongst the pre-2017 cohort was similar at: 9%, 45% and 47 respectively. Of the almost 250 patients diagnosed by the clinic with ARDs since its inception, ten had lung cancer, four mesothelioma and one cancer of the larynx; other cancers were also diagnosed. All of the patients are being followed up to ensure they receive timely and appropriate medical attention, surgical interventions and palliative care. Dr. Urbiratan de Paula Santos, Asbestos Outpatients Clinic, InCor, December 2019. After a tour of the clinic last December (2019), ABREA President Eliezer João de Souza said: “Brazilian law requires companies to perform post-retirement medical check-ups on former employees for up to thirty years after their last occupational exposure. ABREA members and others lack confidence in the reliability and accuracy of the examinations carried out by asbestos company doctors or doctors hired by these companies. The treatment provided by the InCor clinic and the results of its tests, however, are fully trusted by ABREA members who are eager to see an expansion of this program to other hospitals so that asbestos victims in other municipalities and states will also have access to high levels of medical care. ABREA’s aim is to make the impact of asbestos exposures visible by ensuring that each victim is counted. The InCor clinic not only provides first-rate treatment but also registers each case with the relevant authorities in order to build up an accurate picture of the number of Brazilian asbestos victims.” February 10, 2020 _______ 1 Parceria Incor, Abrea e MPT completa um ano e avança no atendimento às vítimas do amianto [Incor, Abrea and MPT Partnership completes one year and advances care for asbestos victims]. December 27, 2018. https://abrea.org.br/not%C3%ADcias/publica%C3%A7%C3%B5es/272-parceria-incor,-abrea-e-mpt-completa-um-ano-e-avan%C3%A7a-no-atendimento-%C3%A0s-v%C3%ADtimas-do-amianto.html?highlight=WyJpbmNvciJd 2 Mizutani RF, de Paula Santos, U. The Assessment Report of Individuals Exposed to Asbestos – Summary of Information as of December 2019. December 23, 2019. Home | Site Info | Site Map | About | Top↑
A review by two university public health departments show that many employees bring home toxic contaminants from work on their clothes. Now, these groups want to recognize these exposures as a public health hazard.
“The coal ministry has decided against keeping any entry restrictions based on technical or financial criteria, which means there are not likely to be any net worth requirement for firms. The government will incentivise expeditious coal production by firms than restricting entry to ensure serious players,” a senior coal ministry official said.
South Africa’s High Court was told that Anglo American turned a “blind eye” to lead poisoning in the Zambian town of Kabwe, where it held a stake in a mine for almost 50 years.
Read more about NGT asks Centre to come up with rules against indoor pollution on Business Standard.The bench took note of a relevant article, in which it was stated that toxic gases and particulate matter may be generated indoors which may adversely affect the employees working in such places...
Do these changes in the labour law regime warrant such a harsh statement or is it that the member belongs to the left and therefore is opposing the moves of the state?Developments over the years of this government and reports of the committees raise deep concerns
In a new study released by the State health Resource Centre (SHRC), Chattisgarh, it is stated that communities in Korba living near coal-fired thermal power plants have greater exposure to particulate matter resulting in higher respiratory illnesses than the general population.
Commentary: Toxic Talc Recent developments in the US suggest that talcs analyzed with transmission electron microscopy can commonly be found to contain asbestos fibers. If so, the use of these products as baby powders and cosmetic powders should be stopped immediately. Background Upon the public disclosure that the laboratories led by Dr. Irving Selikoff in New York had found asbestos in cosmetic talc products, there were media reports in the New York Times and other media in 1976 naming the products in which asbestos was found. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed methods for testing talcs for asbestos, which the talc interests found excessively sensitive. Through the Cosmetic Toiletries and Fragrances Association (CTFA), the talc interests got FDA to accept a less sensitive “voluntary” testing method. In Italy, (ISS) government health laboratories analyzed 15 products sold in Italy and 14 more obtained from the European Pharmacopeia. The report published in 1984 found that there was asbestos in nearly half the products tested. Three quarters of the asbestos fibers were too thin to be seen with optical microscopes, the authors noted. They had used transmission electron microscopy. In 1985, the Italian Pharmacopeia referenced their report and stated that electron microscopy must be used to analyze talc for asbestos. Years later, in 2008, the Italian ISS scientists were stunned to learn that the European Pharmacopeia specified that optical microscopy be used in making final determination of whether talc contained asbestos. We now know that their 1984 Italian report was read at Johnson & Johnson (J&J), where “ideas on how to compromise it” were sought because of its “uncomfortable business aspects.” J&J’s man wrote to an official at Talcs de Luzenac in France, worried that the Italian paper concluded that regulations were anticipated. This could pose a threat to the talc business in Europe, he wrote. We don’t yet fully know how business interests were able over the past 45 years to avoid serious scrutiny of talcs for asbestos contamination, but there is every reason to believe that products now being marketed endanger the public. In December 2018, Reuters ran a report detailing the historic evidence of asbestos contamination in Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder, from corporate documents. Thousands of personal injury lawsuits had been filed against J&J by people with malignant mesothelioma and ovarian cancer who had used Baby Powder and similar products made by other companies.2 The documents revealed in litigation showed that J&J had received repeated analyses of its product from outside labs, starting in the early 1970s, saying that that there was asbestos in it.3 J&J stock dropped by 10% the next day after the Reuters article appeared, $40 billion in market value. On December 3, 2019, Reuters published a report starting with this lead: “Since at least the 1970s, the regulatory agency (FDA) downplayed health concerns about talc in powders and cosmetics, deferring again and again to manufacturers. Only now, as pressure mounts from lawsuits and a Reuters investigation, is the agency stepping up testing.”4 Last October (2019), the FDA announced that it had sent Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder to a laboratory for testing by electron microscopy, and the lab found asbestos in the talc. This prompted J&J to recall thousands of bottles of Baby Powder while still denying that the product was contaminated.5 On February 4, 2020, the FDA held a “Public Meeting on Testing Methods for Asbestos in Talc and Cosmetic Products Containing Talc.”6 This record shows that there has been a long-time failure of government regulators in the US and Europe to protect the public from asbestos in talc consumer products. In the US in the 1970s and Italy in the 1980s, electron microscopic analysis detected asbestos in a substantial fraction of the talc products on the market. The recent public interest resulting from the public release of the internal corporate documents has led the FDA to finally take serious steps to protect the health of US citizens. The recent FDA finding of asbestos in J&J Baby Powder suggests that analysis of products being sold to the public in all countries urgently needs to be done using the electron microscopy method of analysis used by the ISS scientists in the 1980s. March 4, 2020 _______ 1 Environmental Consultant Barry Castleman can be contacted at: barry.castleman@gmail.com 2 A newly published paper on this subject is informative: Moline J, Bevilacqua K, Alexandri M, Gordon RE. Mesothelioma Associated With the Use of Cosmetic Talc. J Occup Environ Med, 2020 Jan. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31609780 3 Girion, L. Johnson & Johnson knew for decades that asbestos lurked in its Baby Powder. December 14, 2018. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/johnsonandjohnson-cancer/ 4 Girion, L. Terhune, C. FDA bowed to industry for decades as alarms were sounded over talc. December 3, 2019. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-health-fda-talc/ 5 Hsui, T. Rabin, RC. Johnson & Johnson Recalls Baby Powder Over Asbestos Worry. October 18, 2019. Updated November 19, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/18/business/johnson-johnson-baby-powder-recall.html 6 Public Meeting on Testing Methods for Asbestos in Talc and Cosmetic Products Containing Talc. February 4, 2020. https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/cosmetics-news-events/public-meeting-testing-methods-asbestos-talc-and-cosmetic-products-containing-talc-02042020-02042020 Home | Site Info | Site Map | About | Top↑
An independent inquiry is exposing the full impact of the carcinogenic fibre in the regions where it was mined — and far beyond. It’s turning into a reckoning.
As many as 15 villagers of Budhiapali, protesting against the ongoing coal mining project of NLC India Limited at Talabira in Rengali block, were arrested by police on Thursday.
The country's economy is developing in the most responsible manner where we have substantially increased the share of renewables in our energy mix, sa..
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