"Polish Town Chokes on Asbestos" by Dennis Cauchon, summarized from USA Today, February 9, 1999

Small towns in Poland where asbestos plants and mines were established became and continue to be literal waste sites for asbestos. One such town is Szczucin, Poland where an asbestos cement plant was located. The plant employed the vast majority of the town's population. The waste from the plant was used to pave roads and playgrounds as well as to build homes and buildings. The plant, formally owned and operated by Communist Party Officials, is now owned by Eternit, an Austrian company. The asbestos cement plant was in production for forty (40) years. Although basic safety practices are now being implemented, it is too little too late for most of the townspeople who are daily being diagnosed with asbestosis and cancer.

For fifty (50) years, Russia was on the world's largest asbestos producer. Even today, Russia produces 720,000 metric tons (2,200 pounds equals a metric ton) of asbestos per year. Russia's asbestos comes from the Ural Mountains. The raw fiber continues to be exported to former communist countries and to The Third World. During the Soviet dynasty, Eastern European countries were coerced by the Communists in power to produce a wide array of asbestos containing common consumer and construction products, such as as floor tile, joint compounds, water pipes, brake linings and textiles.

For the people of Szczucin, asbestos has been their way of life since the asbestos plant opened. The workers would bring asbestos waste home by the bag full. These were people who over the past several decades have had to endure unspeakable human deprivations. They could barely afford to buy food or clothing. They were so desparate they even used the asbestos fiber to spin their own clothing, washcloths, blankets and curtains. They even used the spillover asbestos sand boxes for their children. The kids would play "King of the Mountain" on the vast asbestos waste piles.

Szczucin has one of the highest cancer rates of any town in Poland and is believed to have the highest death rate form cancer and other asbestos-related diseases then any other town in Europe. Mesothelioma is rampant and the local doctors can do little to prevent or even attempt to cure the dreadful disease.

The Polish Parliament ordered that the asbestos plant to stop using asbestos in September, 1998. Although on the job exposure to asbestos has been reduced, the increasing number of deaths will continue to rise because the exposure for most has already occurred and will continue until the town is purged of all asbestos fibers that contraminates the land, air and water.

Sadly, the Russian government continues to deny the existence of an asbestos disease epidemic. This claim has been met with disbelief by occupational health specialists who have visited Russia. Documentation of widespread death and disease is only now being undertaken and recorded. In the past, Russia made no attempt to record the disease and death attributable to asbestos, and now they point to the vaccum as "concrete" evidence that no asbestos problem existed. By this logic, Russia never had any political "dissidents" because they sent them all of to Siberia to die.

Even now one cannot be sure that Russia is truly protecting its people from the deadly carcinogen. Authorities in the former soviet controlled countries are unable to identify any instances where significant safety precautions had ever been instituted. Western investors brought about improved conditions in the Eastern European plants during the 1990's. The safety standards continue to remain poor in these plants. The factories were owned by state and Russia's elevation over production quotas over the needs of its people are well documented. Because of the long latency period for asbestos cancer, we probably won't see the asbestos related death rate peak for another 30 to 40 years.

The Russian and Polish workers were never warned. An unauthorized warning by a doctor in a shipyard in Russia in 1987 resulted in the doctor being fired. Even doctors specializing in occupational medicine remained silent. Information regarding the hazards of asbestos was kept confidential by the government until 1978. Information is now published although it is not widely disseminated.

Poland banned the use of asbestos in September, 1998. The asbestos is being replaced by a synthetic fiber that was developed in Austria.

Even with the new fiber, disease and death will continue to spiral. Until the towns are purged of asbestos, exposure will occur every time the wind blows. Road, playgrounds, courtyards and houses built of asbestos bricks and cements must be cleaned up.

Beginning in 1999, asbestos safety will be taught in the schools. Children will be taught from a textbook and will be encouraged to avoid the playgrounds and the asbestos paved roads.

** POSTED MARCH 9, 1999 **