A recent article in the Vancouver Sun details the results of a study on the health of construction workers in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The study, commissioned by the British Columbia and Yukon Building and Construction Trades Council, estimates that 300 British Columbia construction workers will die every year—for at least the next five years—because of exposure to asbestos.

The article also notes that incidences of asbestos-related death and disease are on the rise. WorkSafeBC, which is the workers’ compensation board of British Columbia, is quoted as “We’ve known that 51 per cent of work-related deaths accepted last year were occupational disease deaths and the vast majority are related to asbestos exposure that happened often decades ago... They [asbestos-related deaths] are certainly increasing year over year and we expect to see this trend for the next 10 to 15 years. It’s a very big issue for us.”

Of the asbestos-related deaths, mesothelioma is most highly represented, but those quoted all say that the figures are skewed much lower than the actual reality of the situation. “We know that many mesothelioma fatalities are not recorded in the statistics, nor are many lung cancer cases that are caused by asbestos exposure,” said Wayne Peppard, executive director of the construction trades council.

Canada, like the United States, is one of the only developed countries in the world that has not enacted an outright ban on asbestos.

To learn more about the most common forms of mesothelioma, please visit the following pages: pleural mesothelioma and peritoneal mesothelioma.

Labels: asbestos, mesothelioma