The World's Deadliest Asbestos Hotspots
Despite worldwide calls for bans and cleanup, asbestos and asbestos diseases remain a pervasive global health issue.
Domestically, asbestos now has a bad name, but it’s been a long time coming. The Environmental Protection Agency banned asbestos almost one hundred years to the day after Nellie Kershaw, the first known modern asbestos poisoning victim, succumbed to asbestosis in England. But worldwide, things are different. Demand remains high for this cheap, effective, and deadly mineral. Russia, Kazakhstan, and China are the world’s largest asbestos exporters. Russia exports about three times more asbestos than the other top three countries combined.
Understanding the statistics on worldwide asbestos
Export figures are a bit deceptive. Chinese factories use vast amounts of asbestos. The government exports whatever is left over. Asbestos overseas is not someone else’s problem. It’s our problem too. For example, the number of asbestos-laced brake pads and other auto parts from China sold in the United States increased 83 percent between 1996 and 2006. Do the Chinese auto parts in your vehicle contain asbestos? It’s hard to tell unless you do a little digging. More on that below.
Worldwide asbestos use could have implications in the United States. Property owner liability is a good example. If a builder uses asbestos-laced materials from China or Russia, the building’s owner, such as a homeowner, could be legally responsible for mesothelioma and other asbestos-related illnesses. Liability could attach even if the building’s owner didn’t know the builder used asbestos-laced materials.
An asbestos exposure lawyer cannot do anything to compensate overseas asbestos illness victims. But an American asbestos exposure lawyer can advocate for these victims and make the world aware of what’s going on over there. Such campaigns will inevitably end the use of dangerous asbestos in all corners of the world. We all have to do our part.
Russia
Asbet is a mid-size city (population about 100,000) nestled in the southeastern Ural Mountains. Explorers discovered asbestos in the mountains surrounding the town once known as Kudelka in 1885. Today, the town has one of the largest asbestos mines in the world, as well as one of the highest cancer rates in the world.
Pleural mesothelioma is the most common form of asbestos-induced cancer. Toxic asbestos fibers prompt very small tumors to form in the mesothelium (thick layer of membranes between the heart and lungs).
Initially, only expensive liquid biopsy tests detect these tumors. Doctors almost never order such tests, mostly because occupational cancer victims usually have no apparent risk factors, like a family history of cancer. Therefore, the tumor grows undetected, often for as many as seventy years.
When the tumor spreads to another part of the lung, most imaging tests immediately detect it. Doctors often order these tests at this time because, once the cancer spreads, victims begin having trouble breathing and show other lung cancer symptoms.
Unfortunately for victims, PlM in the lung is Stage III cancer. Treatment options are very limited at this point. Gene editing therapy has shown promise, but it’s experimental at this point.
Furthermore, the miners in Asbet aren’t the only cancer victims. Asbestos fibers float, so they poison everyone who works or lives anywhere near the mine. This environmental exposure is a significant problem in the United States. Up to now, most environmental PlM victims were take-home asbestos victims. Asbestos workers unwittingly carried fibers home on their clothes or other surfaces. Going forward, 9/11-related environmental PlM may be the biggest issue.
Since Kazakhstan exports so much asbestos, we’ll focus on it independently. Other former Soviet republics which are asbestos hotspots include:
Armenia,
Azerbaijan,
Belarus,
Kyrgyzstan,
Moldova,
Tajikistan,
Uzbekistan, and
Turkmenistan.
Frequently, asbestos providers in these countries refer to this substance as chrysotile, fiber cement, or fiber gaskets. Beware of materials from these places that have these names.
Russia and other non-Western countries usually have very weak environmental quality laws, but that may be changing, at least in Russia and at least in the context of asbestos use.
In September 2011, a Russian Justice Ministry rule declared that asbestos was a hazardous material. A few months later, the Russian Federal State Unitary Enterprise proposed a ban on asbestos in friction materials. The asbestos industry killed the proposal, but more efforts may be forthcoming.
China
Because it exports so many manufactured parts to the United States, asbestos use in China is more concerning to people in this neck of the woods. Asbestos hotspots in China include:
Tianjin: Some thirteen million people live in this district, which is basically a Beijing suburb. Major industries in this area include petrochemical industries, textiles, car manufacturing, mechanical industries, and metalworking. A landmark study found a shockingly high rate of cancer among the city’s asbestos textiles, friction material, and asbestos cement manufacturing sectors.
Beijing: Ironically, one of the country’s largest asbestos-producing areas was the location of a 2004 International Social Security Association consortium which urged all countries to ban the manufacture, trade in and use of all types of asbestos and asbestos-containing products as soon as possible. That obviously hasn’t happened in China.
Gansu: This northwestern China province is a popular tourist destination, because of the Overhanging Great Wall and Jiayuguan Pass fortress complex. It’s also home to the Sichuan Asbestos Mine, which is in the heart of asbestos country in China. As was once the case in America, asbestos manufacturers rake in the money and keep workers in the dark. 80 percent of Sichuan miners are unaware of the health risks they face every day.
China’s asbestos problem, which the government has refused to even acknowledge, is the world’s asbestos problem. Made in China parts are common not only in the United States but also in most of the world’s countries.
Kazakhstan
In May 2022, Kostanay Minerals, Kazakhstan’s only chrysotile (white) asbestos company, suspended mining activities, but not because of health reasons. Instead, they suspended them because their warehouses were full.
As much as 90 percent of Kazakhstani asbestos is shipped abroad. But that’s been changing recently, albeit not for health reasons. Instead, sanctions imposed on shipments from Russian ports as a result of the war on Ukraine have adversely impacted Kostanay’s operations.
Health regulations may be on the way as well. In 2023, the Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Kazakh Research Institute of Oncology and Radiology Bakytzhan Ongarbaev listed seven risk factors for developing cancer. The “Environment” category included “exposure to carcinogens such as asbestos, radiation, chemicals, air and water pollution, which can increase the risk of cancer.”