Asbestos Banned Nearly Everywhere But in the US

Ricky Bagolie

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Often referred to as one of the largest killers known to man, asbestos is reasonsible for thousands of deaths every year yet incredibily it has not been banned in the US.

Around the world, when public health workers call for national bans on asbestos, one of the things they hear from the local asbestos industry is that the U.S. has not banned asbestos. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued regulations to phase out the use of almost all asbestos products in 1989, and these rules were overturned in a court challenge in 1991. Industry spokesmen accordingly emphasize that the sale of almost all asbestos products is still allowed in the U.S. and point to the existence of a 1986 International Labor Organization (ILO) convention on asbestos to assert that there are international standards in effect for "controlled use" of asbestos

Asbestos has been linked not only to the lung disease asbestosis and mesothelioma but various cancers including lung cancer, colon cancer, stomach cancer and throat cancer. Many of these diseases do not even develop until many years after the worker leaves the job where he was exposed. This creates a complicated legal question but an attorney experienced in workers' compensation dust diseases can help a worker and their family get the benefits they deserve.