Asbestos and insurance interests continue to use discredited scientific argument to sell asbestos and to deny justice to asbestos victims

Abstract

Chrysotile asbestos represents ninety-five percent of all asbestos sold over the past century. For more than two decades the global asbestos trade has consisted entirely of chrysotile asbestos. For this reason, it has been imperative for the asbestos industry, in order to ensure its survival, to claim that chrysotile asbestos can be used safely and that only other amphibole forms of asbestos are harmful. The scientific evidence is overwhelming that chrysotile asbestos causes deadly diseases, such as asbestosis, mesothelioma, lung, and other cancers, and that use of chrysotile asbestos should stop. The asbestos industry has, therefore, spent millions of dollars paying scientists to carry out a misinformation campaign to deny the scientific evidence and claim that, while amphibole asbestos causes harm to health, chrysotile asbestos does not.