asbestos victims appeal to Roshi Chadha has exported asbestos to India

Below are moving letters sent from asbestos victims to St Mary’s Hospital Foundation requesting that Roshi Chadha be asked to resign from the hospital’s Board of Directors. Roshi Chadha has exported asbestos from the Jeffrey asbestos mine in Quebec to India and other countries for the past 16 years. She is involved in a plan to open a new Jeffrey underground asbestos mine and export millions of tons of asbestos to Asia for years to come.

If you believe a leading asbestos trader should not be a member of the Board of Directors of a hospital, send a brief message requesting that she be asked to resign. Send your message to Rachel Renaud, Cynda Heward, Dr Arvind Joshi and the Board of Directors at the following email addresses: cynda.heward@ssss.gouv.qc.ca ; arvind.joshi@ssss.gouv.qc.ca ; fondation.stmary@ssss.gouv.qc.ca .

Kathleen Ruff

== ==

January 18, 2012

Dear Ms. Renaud, Ms. Heward, Dr. Joshi and Members of the Board of St Mary’s Hospital Foundation

Over the last five years, each one of us has watched one of our immediate family die from a completely preventable form of cancer caused by asbestos exposure. Mesothelioma is an excruciating painful form of cancer that causes the victims to suffocate to death. We watched parents and spouses waste away, helpless to quench their unending thirst, and unable to fill their lungs with the air they desperately needed.

The World Health Organization, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Medical Association, the Quebec Medical Association and the Quebec government’s own sixteen Directors of Public Health are just a few of the many reputable health organizations that call for a ban of chrysotile asbestos, the product that Roshi Chadha, your board member, has been involved in exporting for the past 16 years to third world and developing nations. There is no safe form of asbestos, despite what the chrysotile asbestos exporters may tell the innocent people who work in the factories that use Canadian asbestos. Please watch the CBC report, Canada’s Ugly Secret. http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/indepthanalysis/story/2010/06/28/national-asbestos.html

It has been proven that chrysotile can’t be used safely in Quebec, according to government standards, so it would be impossible for it to be used safely in the developing world. Thousands of people are going to become victims of asbestos in these countries because of Seja Trade, Ms. Chadha’s export company.

According to the President’s message the board members “lead by example”. The Foundation’s mission is to “strive to provide Healthcare on a Human Scale”. We believe having an executive of Seja Trade on your board is like having someone from the tobacco industry on your board. We ask that you remove this asbestos exporter from your board as surely there can be someone to fill her spot that does not contribute to the painful deaths of 107,000 people a year.

We look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Canadian Voices of Asbestos Victims, speaking up for asbestos victims everywhere

Stacy Cattran

Leah Nielsen

Heidi von Palleske

Dr. Cathy Conrad

Michaela Keyserlingk

== ==
January 23, 2012

I am respectfully requesting that Roshi Chadha be removed as a member of the Board of St. Mary's Hospital Foundation. Her role as an asbestos exporter is in direct conflict with what a medical institution stands for. Please know that asbestos-related diseases are the #1 occupational killer across Canada, there is no known safe exposure limit, and there are no known cures for the diseases that it creates. The WHO has asked for a complete asbestos ban due to the serious and significant negative health impacts of asbestos worldwide.

I watched my Dad die from mesothelioma, a very painful, terminal cancer cause by asbestos, just as he and my Mum were settling into a well-deserved retirement. No one should have to go through what we went through, yet every year thousands more follow in our footsteps as loved ones fall ill and die due to asbestos exposure. My Dad was an electrician - he never worked in a mine or a factory; he never knew that he had been exposed. Back in1953 asbestos was listed as a carcinogen in one of the world's oldest, best known, and most respected medical journals. My Dad was just a boy in 1953, if we had heeded the warnings then, my Dad would still be alive today. This deadly mineral is odourless, tasteless and invisible. The only way to end these senseless deaths from this known carcinogen is to ban asbestos.

No one who supports the asbestos industry in any way should be a board member of any health organization. Your website uses the word "compassionate" over and over again to emphasize this characteristic of St. Mary's Hospital. Your board needs to lead by example; the example that Roshi Chadha is setting is not one to be followed, and is not one of compassion.

Please, I implore you, request that Roshi Chadha resign as a member of the St. Mary's Hospital Foundation Board.


Kind Regards,
Tracy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tracy Ford
AREA Fund Co-Founder
tracy@areafund.ca
www.areafund.ca

Critics brand asbestos as Canada's latest global sin

By Marianne White, Postmedia News December 28, 2011

QUEBEC — After the oilsands and the seal hunt, asbestos has become Canada's new sin, tarred as an evil at home and abroad.

In just three years, asbestos went from being one of the country's great exports. supported by all political parties at the House of Commons, to being vilified by politicians of all stripes, including some Conservatives.

"We've reached a tipping point in our attitude toward asbestos and so has the world. Canada's boy-scout image is being tarnished," said New Democrat MP Pat Martin, who has been fighting to ban asbestos mining since he was first elected in 1997.

"In many circles, we've become an international pariah. Clubbing baby seals, dumping asbestos in the Third World and tarsands are probably the three biggest embarrassments for Canada on the international stage," Martin said.

Canada's reputation took a hit earlier this year, when the government blocked international efforts to label the chrysotile asbestos — the kind mined in Canada — as a hazardous material under the UN Rotterdam Convention.

The European parliament also took shots at Canada earlier this year over the oilsands industry's environmental record, ongoing asbestos exports and the sealing industry.

In a news release, the members of parliament expressed concerns about the "serious harm to the health of workers mining asbestos, the processing and use of which is already banned in the EU."

In November, Australia's Upper House passed a motion urging the government to pressure Canada to stop producing and exporting asbestos — a insulating mineral used in construction that is linked to deadly lung diseases, including cancer.

Activists in Asian countries, notably in India, are increasingly holding demonstrations to protest against asbestos exports, which they say are causing harm to workers.

Mohit Gupta, co-ordinator of the Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India, called Canada's plan to eliminate tariffs on asbestos exports to India "an appalling travesty of all ethical codes of human behaviour."

"All of this is giving Canada an enormous black eye around the world. People can't believe that Canada is acting as a rogue country and that Canada is the biggest public health obstacle internationally to making any progress on the asbestos issue," said Kathleen Ruff, a prominent anti-asbestos campaigner.

But for the president of the Jeffrey Mine in Asbestos, Que., activists are "unrelentingly and unfairly" attacking chrysotile asbestos.

"I've been working at the mine, first as an engineer, for 42 years. My son worked here for 15 years. Do you really think we'd be stupid enough to stay on if it were as dangerous as they are claiming?" asks Bernard Coulombe.

He doesn't deny asbestos is a carcinogen, but he stressed it can be harmful only if people are highly exposed and for a long period of time.

"Just like the sun, or alcohol. If you drink too much or lay naked in the sun for hours, it can be dangerous," he said.

The industry and the federal government maintain chrysotile asbestos is safe to handle as long as proper guidelines are followed.

The mineral is banned in Canada and the government is spending millions to remove it from buildings across the country, including the Parliament buildings and the prime minister's residence.

Critics in Canada and overseas have been particularly concerned about exports to developing countries, such as India, that they say lack the safeguards to ensure asbestos is used safely.

A recent documentary of the Australian Broadcasting Corp. showed that, according to the World Health Organization, asbestos kills an estimated 8,000 people each year in India — a situation described as an "epidemic" in the documentary.

The WHO estimates that globally, more than 100,000 people die from asbestos-related illnesses, including cancer, every year.

Coulombe disputes that figure and said he has asked the WHO several times to explain how they came up with the number.

"The controversy is constantly fuelled by false information," Coulombe said, pointing to reports showing workers in India and other countries handling asbestos with their bare hands.

"We make sure it is used safely everywhere we export it. There might be some small mom-and-pops shops who buy asbestos from China and do a bad job, but that represents less than one tenth of a percentage of the industry in India," Coulombe said.

Leslie Stayner, an asbestos expert at the University of Illinois school of public health, says he fears that, in the future, there will be an epidemic of cancer and other diseases as a result of exposure to asbestos in developing countries.

"I'm afraid that the end results of Canada and other countries exporting asbestos will be that the developing world will be experiencing an epidemic of asbestos-related diseases some years from now as we are experiencing in Canada and the U.S.," he said.

Stayner was a key member of a federal government expert panel on asbestos who delivered a report that noted the "strong relationship" between lung cancer and chrysotile asbestos. That report was held back by Ottawa for 13 months before it was released in 2011.

Stayner has called for Canada to ban exports of asbestos and stressed the country could show a leadership role in taking a stand against the mineral.

"The science is very clear, and a number of international bodies have reviewed the issue and have all come to the same conclusion that all forms of asbestos, including chrysotile, are hazardous and cause cancers in humans. That's not going to change," he said.

Canada is facing a renewed push to ban exports of asbestos for good now that the country's two remaining asbestos mines, located in Quebec, have stopped producing the controversial mineral for the first time in 130 years.

In November, the Lac d'amiante du Canada operation in Thetford Mines suspended its operations because it was having operational obstacles accessing the mineral. In the town of Asbestos, about two hours east of Montreal, the Jeffrey Mine needs a bank-loan guarantee from the Quebec government before it can start digging a new underground mine.

Coulombe said he hopes to resume work next summer if he gets the green light from provincial officials. In the meantime, a small amount continues to be exported, but Coulombe noted that he will be out of stock in five or six months.

Asbestos is a hot-button issue in Quebec and the government is taking its time before deciding whether it will hand out the $58-million loan guarantee.

"We are still analyzing the project and the financial structure," said Quebec Economic Development Minister Sam Hamad.

He noted the government is committed to keep the mine open for economic reasons, but stressed the managers will not get a penny unless they can assure Quebec that asbestos will be used safely where it is exported.

NDP's Pat Martin called on Quebec to seize the opportunity to let the province's struggling asbestos mines die their natural death.

"Let it go. Stop writing the cheques and they'll be out of business. And then we can hold out head up high again," he said. "I think we're within striking distance of victory in terms of banning asbestos."

mwhite@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/whitma

Read more: http://www.canada.com/business/Critics+brand+asbestos+Canada+latest+global/5918574/story.html#ixzz1hvyo9YUP

Asbestos Trade Data (2010)
Top Five Producers(tonnes):
Russia 1,000,000
China 400,000
Brazil 270,000
Kazakhstan 214,000
Canada 100,000

Top Five Consumers(tonnes):
China 613,760
India 426,363
Russia 263,037
Brazil 139,153
Indonesia 111,848

most insulation workers to develop asbestosis

This post was originally published on the CSRHUB blog

By Carol Pierson Holding
When a friend sent me this photo of a giant inflatable rat wearing a sign “Asbestos Kills,” the first thing I thought of was Bahar Gidwani’s March 2011 post on CSRHUB blog. Gidwani’s piece was inspired and also illustrated by a rat photo he’d taken near the Citicorp building in midtown New York, which in turn was inspired by the rat’s presence several years ago at a building next to his that employed non-union staff. Why had it reappeared?

Gidwani connected the return of inflatable union rats to the resurgence of union activism following the Wisconsin government union protests. Apparently, unions sense a change in public perception, a new acceptance of their role in maintaining worker’s rights. As union support grows, the huge inflatable rats, some up to 20 feet tall, have become somewhat beloved. According to the New York Observer, they even have a nickname, “Scabbies.”

Now the Scabbies have been adapted to bring awareness to a more pernicious issue, asbestos poisoning. By adding the sign “Asbestos Kills” around Scabbies’ necks, the Asbestos, Lead and Hazardous Waste (ALHW) Laborer’s Union 78 of NYC, Long Island and New Jersey is able to bring support for the Scabbies to their cause: only union labor is safe for asbestos removal.

Formed in 1996, ALHW has 4,000 members and 200 signatory environmental contractors, who remove about 90 percent of asbestos in the region. What they promise is safe removal of asbestos, in accordance with the maze of federal, state and local regulations.

But is the work the Asbestos Rats are protesting really sub-standard or just non-union? Or, as the Upper West Side blog asks, is this about a pissed-off union or a legitimate safety issue? The union arguments are the same at every protest location, that the landlord hired “a sub-standard company to perform deadly asbestos removal.”The fact is, removing asbestos safely is incredibly complicated. New York State’s 221 pages of requirements include special training for workers, an engineering survey, assessments of worker exposure, plans for dust suppression, decontamination of all equipment used, a water tight dumpster for disposing asbestos materials, decontamination of workers (a three-stage procedure) — the list seems endless and the rules difficult to understand and follow.

And there have been scandals around asbestos removal, with some companies having a record of violations and fines. So yes, there are substandard contractors that will cut the enormous expense involved in asbestos removal, which can run more than the cost of demolition. But crooked contractors are only one problem. In 2010, a federal EPA investigation uncovered a New York City safety inspector who had falsified results for 10 years, giving a clean report to over 200 buildings that were never inspected. So focusing a spotlight on the issue is warranted.

Despite all the precautions, 10,000 people in the US are killed by the toxin every year – most but not all workers who are exposed daily. In 1964, the American Medical Association published Dr. Irving Selikoff’s group’s study showing that over twenty years, most insulation workers would develop asbestosis.

Government union workers raised issues that are important to maintaining a just society, such as the right to collective bargaining. Now, the ALHW union is raising an issue that is even more serious, the removal of asbestos in a way that doesn’t release its lethal fibers. Asbestos poisons not only the ALHM’s workers, but also the apartments, workplaces and schools of American families. There’s still a lot of it that has to be removed. Regardless of their motivation, ALHM is right to bring attention to the issue of its safe removal.

Carol Pierson Holding writes on environmental issues and social responsibility for policy and news publications, including the Carnegie Council’s Policy Innovations, Harvard Business Review, San Francisco Chronicle, India Time, The Huffington Post and many other web sites. Her articles on corporate social responsibility can be found on CSRHUB.com, a website that provides sustainability ratings data on 5,000 companies worldwide. Carol holds degrees from Smith College and Harvard University.

CSRHUB is a corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings tool that allows managers, consultants, academics and activists to track the sustainability performance of major companies. We aggregate data from more than 125 sources including seven leading socially responsible investing (SRI) analysts, Carbon Disclosure Project, indexes, NGOs, crowd sources, and government agencies to provide our users with a comprehensive source of employee, environmental, community, and governance information on nearly 5,000 publicly traded companies in 65 countries. CSRHUB is a B Corporation.

Canadian Red Cross May Remove Board Member Roshi Chadha Because Of Asbestos Ties

Amid mounting pressure, the Canadian Red Cross likely will ask for the resignation of executive board member Roshi Chadha next month because of her strong link to the asbestos industry.

Mesothelioma is the deadly cancer caused by the inhalation of asbestos.

Chadha is an executive for Seja Trade Ltd, a shipping company that exports raw asbestos from Quebec. Seja Trade also is a subsidiary of Balcorp., which is awaiting a controversial, $58 million government loan guarantee to re-open an asbestos mine in Jeffrey. The president of Balcorp is Baljit Chadha, the husband of Roshi.

“It’s really hypocritical of her to be on the board of the Red Cross, which is a wonderful organization. If she doesn’t resign, they should remove her,” anti-asbestos advocate Stacy Cattran told The Mesothelioma Center on Tuesday. “I think the Red Cross will do the right thing.”

The Red Cross is considered the world’s leading humanitarian organization, providing much-needed disaster relief both at home and abroad, often to developing countries where the asbestos is being shipped.

The Red Cross also has been assisting victims of mesothelioma in Canada, including the father of Cattran, who died in 2008, just three months after being diagnosed. Her father died at age 72 after working much of his career as an electrician, where he was exposed to asbestos for many years.

“Having someone on the board who supports the export of asbestos just flys in the face of their mission,” Cattran said. “They support saving lives, not ending them with asbestos.”

Although the use of asbestos has been restricted dramatically in both the United States and Canada, Balcorp is hoping to capitalize on the growing demand for it in India and Asia. The last two asbestos mines in Canada were temporarily closed in November, although Balcorp is making plans to reopen at least one of them again.

Much of the asbestos production in the world now comes from Russia, Kazakhstan, China and Brazil. Canadian asbestos often has been viewed as a higher quality than that coming from other countries.

The mining of asbestos stopped in the United States in 2002, but 820 metric tons were imported in the first half of 2010, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, and much of it came from Canada.

Cattran is a co-founder of Canadian Voices of Asbestos Victims, which joined with the U.S.-based Asbestos-Disease Awareness Group to present an official Declaration to both President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper to support a North America ban on asbestos.

Christopher Hilton, a spokesman for the Canadian Red Cross, told the Vancouver Sun that his organization will consider the concerns raised by anti-asbestos activists at a board meeting in January.

“It’s a matter for the board,” Hilton said. “I’m not going to presuppose what the board is going to do.”

According to the Sun, Chadha was elected to the Red Cross Board of Directors in 2008. She is one of four at-large members on the 16-person board. She also is on the board of directors for St. Mary’s Hospital Foundation and at McGill University Health Centre.

The asbestos issue in Canada generates considerable more debate than it does in the United States, at least partially because the Conservative Party has supported it with subsidies. The Canadian government also blocked the listing of chrysotile asbestos on the Hazardous Materials list of the Rotterdam Convention this summer in Geneva, Switzerland.

Putting asbestos on that list would have made it more difficult to export, allowing importing counties to refuse acceptance of it if they thought the asbestos could not be handled safely.

(Banjit and Roshi Chada both have jobs that link them to the asbestos industry. The Canadian Red Cross is likley to ask for Roshi Chada's resignation from its board of directors.)

About this Author:An award winning reporter and writer, Tim Povtak is a senior content writer for the Mesothelioma Center. He previously worked at the Orlando Sentinel and then at AOL. You can contact him directly tpovtak@asbestos.com with any story ideas or comments.

Google moves Supreme Court against Andhra Pradesh Asbestos firm

New Delhi: Google India, a subsidiary of US-based Google Inc, has moved the Supreme Court seeking quashing of a criminal complaint filed against it for allegedly carrying defamatory material on its website against an Andhra-based asbestos manufacturing firm.

Visakha Industries, in its complaint before a civil court in Secunderabad, has alleged that the network service provider had hosted some defamatory articles aimed at it on its website.

Visakha had sent a legal notice to Google India in December 2008 alleging that articles authored by Delhi-based Gopal Krishna (coordinator of Ban Asbestos India) and hosted by the website violated its rights and were defamatory as they were aimed at a single manufacturer.

Subsequently, Visakha filed a case in the civil court, which summoned the Google India officials. However, on appeal, the high court stayed the order.

An apex court bench headed by Justice P Sathasivam, while seeking a reply from Visakha, also stayed the proceedings pending before the additional chief metropolitan magistrate at Secunderabad.

Senior counsel KK Venugopal argued that the service was not provided by Google India but by its parent company Google Inc and the entire complaint was bereft of any averment of its involvement in the defamation case.

Challenging the Andhra Pradesh High Court’s judgement that dismissed its plea, Google India said the high court grossly erred in concluding that the service provider did not initiate any action to expeditiously remove or disable access to the alleged defamatory material after the asbestos firm brought it to its notice.

Claiming that Google India doesn’t have any control over the website www.groups.google.com , counsel Mahesh Agarwal argued that the petitioner cannot be termed as ‘intermediary’ as per the Information Technology Act, 2000. Besides, the Indian arm has no control over the activities of its parent company and is not even providing hosting services on its website or any other platform.

“The high court failed to appreciate that to constitute an offence of defamation under the IPC only in the event of a publication, would the publisher be liable… The service provider merely provides a platform for third parties to post their contents and does not undertake the activity of publishing such content,” the search engine giant's petition stated.

According to the largest search engine, it is trite law that actions of intermediaries such as Google Inc in providing a platform to end users to upload content does not amount to publication in law and consequently, the question of holding such intermediaries or their employees liable for defamation would not arise.

Alleging that such complaint was malafide, it further added that it is the third party user who creates and disseminates information/content by posting such content.

“Consequently, the service provider is not the author and publisher of the allegedly defamatory content and neither Google Inc nor Google India can be termed as publishers of such content,” Agarwal stated.

http://www.financialexpress.com/news/google-moves-supreme-court-against-andhra-pradesh-firm/833943/0#

Last stand for asbestos?

The LAB Chrysotile asbestos mining operation in Black Lake Que. (Dec. 13, 2010) Jacques Boissinot/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Kathleen Ruff

The Harper government is negotiating a free-trade agreement (Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement) with India, which would advantage our asbestos industry by removing the 10 per cent tariff on exports to its biggest customer, India.

This issue might seem academic, since asbestos mining has ceased in Canada. The Jeffrey mine at Asbestos, Que., (the biggest open pit asbestos mine in the world) closed two years ago and Canada’s last operating asbestos mine — LAB Chrysotile’s mine at Thetford Mines, Que. — closed in November this year.

These last two asbestos mines were facing financial and environmental disasters. Both were forced to seek bankruptcy protection several years ago, slashing wages and pensions. From being the world’s biggest exporter of asbestos, the asbestos industry represented only 0.1 per cent of Quebec exports in 2010. By 2011, after 130 years, Quebec asbestos mining finally stopped altogether. Other asbestos mines in British Columbia, Newfoundland and Ontario closed years ago.

One would think this was the end of a sorry chapter of Canadian history. But one would be wrong.

Undeterred, both Jeffrey Mine Inc. and LAB Chrysotile Ltd. are aggressively seeking financial and political assistance from the Quebec and Canadian governments to restart the asbestos disaster all over again.

When it comes to promoting the interests of the asbestos industry, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is no sluggard. In the weeks prior to the May 2 general election, the 14,000 citizens of Asbestos were treated to not just one, but two visits by the Prime Minister, who proclaimed his commitment to fight “discrimination” against the asbestos industry.

Harper’s courting of the citizens of Asbestos did not produce the desired result. The Bloc held the seat by a hair’s breadth over the NDP, with the Conservative candidate coming a humiliating third.

Harper’s dedication to the asbestos trade continued unabated, however, as evidenced by his sabotage of the UN Rotterdam Convention Conference in Geneva earlier this year to prevent chrysotile asbestos (100 per cent of the global asbestos trade) from being put on the convention’s list of hazardous substances, thus ensuring continued uncontrolled sale of asbestos.

Asbestos can only be sold if there are no safety controls. Safety measures are complex and costly, as Canadians well know, and are required for the whole life cycle of asbestos, thus pricing it out of the market. Even its biggest fan, Industry Minister Christian Paradis, admits this.

Chrysotile asbestos is listed under Canada’s Hazardous Substances Act but, according to our government, is not hazardous for people overseas. Around the world, Canada’s conduct was bitterly condemned as a despicable double standard.

When it comes to the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with India, Harper is likewise employing a double standard. He will not tolerate “discrimination” against the asbestos industry, but is undisturbed by discrimination favouring the asbestos industry.

While working to eliminate tariffs on asbestos, Harper is conspicuously silent over the $58 million subsidy that the Quebec government has offered to the consortium of “free enterprise” investors to cover 70 per cent of the cost of the underground Jeffrey asbestos mine they want to open in Asbestos.

Under free trade rules, such subsidies are prohibited and the Canadian government has responsibility for ensuring their elimination.

LAB Chrysotile will also receive a $58 million subsidy from the Quebec government, according to Thetford Mines Mayor Luc Berthold, who states that Quebec Minister of Municipal Affairs Laurent Lessard has agreed to offer LAB the same subsidy as offered to the Jeffrey mine investors.

Paradis, Harper’s Quebec lieutenant, is the MP for Thetford Mines and a powerful political ally of LAB Chrysotile. He has pledged the Harper government’s full support for the plan to restart mining asbestos. Since taking power, the Harper government has given $1.5 million to the asbestos industry’s lobby group, the Chrysotile Institute. Conservative MPs say the Harper government has cut the funding, but the institute’s president, Clément Godbout, says that federal government funding continues.

The Canadian Cancer Society has criticized this financing as promoting deceptive industry propaganda that will cause loss of life. The financing also clashes with CEPA.

In Quebec, Minister of Economic Development Sam Hamad is in charge of the $58 million loan guarantee to the asbestos investors. In 2003, Hamad gave the global asbestos industry a priceless PR gift. He recommended replacing “asbestos” with the word “chrysotile” in order “to give the industry nobility and growth.”

Harper and Quebec Premier Jean Charest refuse appeals to respect science and protect health. Perhaps, ironically, the free trade deal with India will succeed where scientific evidence and human compassion have failed: an end to taxpayer subsidies to the deadly asbestos industry.

Toronto Star, Dec. 15, 2011

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1102952--last-stand-for-asbestos

James Hardie Loses Bid to Overturn Asbestos Award

Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) -- James Hardie Industries SE lost a bid to overturn an asbestos award to a cancer victim, allowing under people who contracted mesothelomia to seek compensation,
Turner Freeman Lawyers said in a statement. The Australian High Court today rejected James Hardie’s appeal, the law firm said.