“No More Asbestos Casualties.” Colombia Requests The Prohibition Of This Toxic Agent

It is very possible that the name, by itself, does not tell you anything. Now, asbestos is a deadly little enemy that we all need to know about. It refers to a group of minerals with long and thin fibers that are very present in construction materials.

Until a few years ago it was widely used in thermal insulation. It was the favorite “fiber cement” to build houses, industrial buildings, boilers, factories. Now this invisible element, inhaled gradually, ends up being deadly.

It is a slow but irreversible process, in which it adheres to the lungs creating small scars, until mesothelioma appears , a type of cancer that affects the membranes that line the lungs or abdomen.

Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) have already warned of its consequences, until, little by little, many countries have banned its use. Even the International Labor Organization (ILO) recommended in 1986 to replace asbestos with other less harmful materials.

Despite its ban, one of the countries that is suffering the most from its effects is Colombia. The population sees every day how the government defends the safety of asbestos or asbestos through skillful “legal juggling” with which to continue to maintain its production, while people continue to die.

Today in our space we want to tell you about this invisible enemy that many of us can have very close without knowing it.

Asbestos, more than just a mineral

There are those who are clear about it. In Colombia, asbestos manufacturing companies are a true “lobby”. So much so that, every time an attempt has been made to ban its production, the big businessmen have resorted to a whole legal arsenal to maintain their production.

The main argument they usually make is that there is no conclusive data that asbestos is really harmful. Large firms such as “Eternit”, one of the fiber cement plants with the most power in the markets, points out the following in their defense:

• Asbestos includes up to 114 agents. The key is to use them safely in all manufacturing processes for mass consumer products.
• Among those agents, the one they claim to use is chrysotile, which is regulated and allowed in more than 140 countries. The most harmful, they claim, are amphiboles; hence they have been replaced by chrysotile.

Now, what is clear is that none of these companies is going to stop using asbestos or asbestos as a raw material. It is cheap and a key part to manufacture vehicles, air conditioners, paints, for the production of tiles, buildings, water tanks.

So far, most legislative mechanisms to “knock down” asbestos have been stopped by clever tricks, leaving the population to continue inhaling that enemy so close, so lethal.

How Asbestos Works

Something important should be specified: direct and punctual contact with asbestos or asbestos hardly poses a risk to health. The problem is the prolonged proximity, their inhalation and the fact that, over time, these fibers detach from the material and pass into the air, being easily breathable.

Something as common as being in contact with an area where there are demolition of construction material raises the risk significantly. This is what happened, for example, with the attack on the World Trace Center on September 11, 2001.

After the fall of the Twin Towers, hundreds of tons of asbestos were suspended. To this day, deaths and diagnoses of malignant mesothelioma continue to appear.

One of the cases that has just come to light in Colombia is that of Ana Cecilia Niño. At 41 years old and a little girl, she must cope with this type of cancer.

Ana Cecilia lived 17 years in Sibaté, in a beautiful neighborhood where she spent an ideal childhood and adolescence if it had not been for the fact that right next to her house, she had a silent enemy : the fiber cement plant of the Eternit company.

It took just two decades for his lungs to be touched, for, slowly and progressively, the disease was created within him: malignant mesothelioma, which he faces every day with chemotherapy while he struggles to give voice to an evident reality: asbestos kills.

Effects that asbestos or asbestos can cause

Symptoms associated with asbestos diseases take 20-30 years to appear. The first indications would be the following:

• Abdominal pain
• Chest pressure
• Tiredness
• Chest pain when breathing
• Continuous cough
• Losing weight without knowing why

As the doctors explain to us, the symptoms can accelerate if the person is a smoker. However, malignant mesothelioma is a devastating type of cancer that, if left untreated, can cause the patient to die within a year.

To date, more than 50 countries have regulated the use of asbestos or asbestos in the construction industry. However, Colombia continues to be one of the main producing countries. Hence, its citizens fight a particular battle so that this lethal enemy is finally no longer present.

Let’s hope so, because We all deserve a purer and healthier environment where we can live in peace, in harmony with nature and not with so many economic interests involved.