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Canada loves asbestos (in third world lungs)

Byoliveridley

In a normal world, when something is severely restricted in your country, you would not export it to another country under the pretense that used under certain, very restricted conditions, your product only causes a moderate increase in cancer.

While the federal government projects an image of being a helpful, international Boy Scout on issues ranging from peacekeeping to nuclear proliferation, Canada has a peculiar relationship to asbestos.

globeandmail.com: Asbestos shame

But we don’t live in a normal world, because asbestos is exported from Canada to India where it is added to cement.

Tushar Joshi, a noted New Delhi occupational health expert, is flabbergasted over asbestos sales by a country of Canada’s stature. “As a developed country, you expect more civilized behaviour,” Dr. Joshi says. Canada’s activities are “beyond comprehension,” he adds, calling Ottawa’s promotion of asbestos “a black spot on a sparkling white dress.”

yes, well said. It is very mysterious that asbestos use in India went up in the 1980s just as evidence about its incredibly destructive effects on respiratory systems had curtailed use in most of the first world. Clearly, third world lungs are not as important as Canadian lungs.

Asbestos is one area where Canada lags even behind the US. And Canada’s environmental practices are going to come under increasing scrutiny as climate change unfreezes the great white North and exposes the resources underneath.

Canada, the world is watching.

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    South Asians: Watch your Heart

    Byoliveridley

    Seems like us South Asians die earlier from heart attacks.

    ScienceDaily: South Asians Have Higher Levels Of Heart Attack Risk Factors At Younger Ages

    Deaths related to cardiovascular disease occur 5 to 10 years earlier in South Asian countries than in Western countries, according to background information in the article. This has raised the possibility that South Asians exhibit a special susceptibility for acute myocardial infarction (AMI; heart attack) that is not explained by traditional risk factors.

    But why?

    The prevalence of protective risk factors (leisure time physical activity, regular alcohol intake, and daily intake of fruits and vegetables) were markedly lower in South Asian study participants compared with those from other countries.

    Um, it is mainly behavioral, not genetic according to the authors, and hence can be mitigated by lifestyle changes.

    Well, I guess it is time to take a personal stock as of 1-18-2007:

    • Weight – Well, I am in the lower end of the healthy BMI.
    • Exercise – 4-5 days of 45 minutes – 1 hour per day, pretty good.
    • Food – Well, mostly good, especially if the candy can be avoided. I need to eat more vegetables, but I eat a lot of high fibre, and whole wheat food, probably not enough protein, mostly vegetarian.
    • Alcohol (1-2 drinks is apparently a heart protector) – Amen, I am a religious one drink a day partaker, more on weekends :-;
    • Smoking – Well, gave that up a while back, now to quit that occasional “party” smoke.
    • Stress – Well, not so good, this is probably the area I would need to work on the most.
    • Hypertension – Well, I am borderline on my blood pressure readings 🙁 Need to work on that.
    • Cholesterol – Still waiting for results on my physical.

    On the whole, I seem to be in decent shape. It’s good to take stock once in a while.

  • American feed makers used melamine as well

    Byoliveridley

    Well, turns out all that China baiting was for naught, because right in America’s heartland, Ohio, some feed manufacturer was using melamine as a binding agent.

    Melamine From U.S. Put in Feed – New York Times

    Ever since pet food contaminated with an industrial chemical was traced to shipments of wheat flour from China, American officials have concentrated on cracking down on imports.

    It turns out the problem was closer to home, too.

    Yesterday, federal officials announced that a manufacturing plant in Ohio was using the same banned substance, melamine, to make binding agents that ended up in feed for farmed fish, shrimp and livestock.

    Apparently, it is Tembec, a Canadian company with a plant in Ohio. I am sure the effects to humans are not significant, but where’s the control? Where’s the list of things you can’t put in food. More importantly, where’s the list of things you’re allowed to put in? Food being a very easy mode of pollutant ingestion, the ingredients list must be exclusionary, that is, only approved ingredients are allowed. If something is not approved, it is not allowed…

  • Nepotism, Environmental Edition – High alert

    Byoliveridley

    In the fast emerging banana republic that is the US of A, apparently, and this was news to me, the vice president’s son-in-law wields a lot of power! I am laughing very hard at the cronyism while I remain concerned about the effects. But, remember Americans, democracy begins at home! While you’re busy lecturing, and invading other countries to “spread democracy”, your vice president’s family acts as if their “descended from god” line to the throne gives them divine right to rule by fiat.

    Dick Cheney’s Dangerous Son-In-Law – Art Levine

    To understand the workings of Philip Perry is to get a sense of the true lines of power in the executive branch. “Perry is an éminence grise,” says one congressional staffer. “He’s been pretty good at getting his fingerprints off of anything, but everyone in this field knows he’s the one directing it. He is very good at the stealth move.” And, as it turns out, Perry’s stealth moves have often benefited opponents of chemical regulation. One of his final pieces of handiwork included coming up with what critics have called an “industry wish list” on chemical security that ultimately became law last fall. “Every time the industry has gotten in trouble,” says the staffer, “they’ve gone running to Phil Perry.” The result has been that our chemical sites remain, even five years after 9/11, stubbornly vulnerable to attack. Philip Perry has hardly been alone in tolerating this. Others in the White House and Congress have been equally solicitous toward the chemical industry. But as part of a network of Cheney loyalists in the executive branch, Perry has been a key player in the struggle to prevent the federal government from assuming any serious regulatory role in business, no matter what the cost. And a successful attack on a chemical facility could make such a cost high indeed. A flippant critic might say the father-in-law has been prosecuting a war that creates more terrorists abroad, while the son-in-law has been working to ensure they’ll have easy targets at home. But it’s more precise to say that White House officials really, really don’t want to alienate the chemical industry, and Perry has been really, really willing to help them not do it.

    Nice work. The alternative that the EPA wants to pursue is called inherently safer technologies, or IST. Read the whole article to follow all the behind the scene machinations. Next time a pesticide plant blows up in N.J releasing tons of chlorine, you can bet that none of the people involved in these maneuvers will be anywhere near the fallout!

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    FDA and European regulators in information sharing agreement on food

    Byoliveridley

    Good, I guess. The Europeans demand a lot of testing on their food, and if they can share information with the FDA on general trends, and even specific batches of food ingredients, the FDa gets a lot of information without having to setup any kind of infrastructure, or have manufacturers scream at them for insisting they perform tests they’re already performing for the European market!

    In regulation, the strictest one eventually wins as long as it has enough of a market that it cannot be boycotted/ignored.

    FDA inks deal with Europeans over food safety | Health | Reuters

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Monday it signed a pact with European regulators to share more information about the safety of the food supply.

    The FDA said the agreement with the European Food Safety Authority would pave the way for formally sharing confidential scientific information and that it would help protect confidential information under both regions’ laws.

  • Snakes in NY

    Byoliveridley

    What fun, we saw three snakes hiking at the Turkey Mountain Nature Preserve in Westchester County, NY (the highest point in Westchester county, the information plaque claims that on a clear day, you can see the Manhattan skyline to the south). They were at different parts of the trail and we nearly stepped on them each time. They seemed in no hurry to escape and we got within a foot each time. Unfortunately, no camera except the cellphone, which is worse than no camera at all!

    There were a couple of really sluggish rat snakes…

    Rat snake

    And there was a rather more active garter.

    Thamnophis_sirtalis_parietalis.jpg
    Memo to self: Take the camera wherever you go, this means you!

  • Obama and Harper, saving a tree

    Byoliveridley

    Canada hopes to achieve a North American climate-change deal with U.S. president-elect Barack Obama and will begin working on the file within weeks, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Wednesday.Meantime, officials told The Canadian Press the Harper government has been waiting for the departure of President George W. Bush to work with his successor on an integrated carbon market.While states and provinces have been cobbling together a patchwork of approaches, federal officials said they have been eyeing a continent-wide solution for some time.

    globeandmail.com: Canada to seek climate deal with Obama

    Interesting and potentially promising news. I have thought for a while that Canada would have no choice but to start some kind of emissions cap/trade or carbon tax, given the way the wind was blowing down south. Harper, for all his reliance on Alberta’s oil votes, realises that with or without his say, the country’s leading trading partner is going to impose a carbon tax (a cap and trade is a price on carbon, or a tax, semantics aside) on Canadian-US trade.

    It is also interesting that this statement came out right after Obama’s election, and the foreign minister went out of his way to say that they were waiting for Bush to get out of the way. Nice cozying up, Harper, making up for all your stupid previous statements about Obama. But do not worry, this new emperor is more gracious than the previous one!

    We are going to be living in interesting times, good ones, finally.