So that makes five. Sandy Kinart’s brother-in-law died a couple weeks back, 14 years after mesothelioma took the life of her husband, Blayne. One a pipefitter, the other a millwright, the Kinart brothers spent their working lives in Sarnia, bearing the toxic industrial legacy of asbestos exposure.
In 1998, it was Sandy’s uncle Garnet, a fibreglass worker, who was felled by the aggressive cancer. There was another brother-in-law, gone. And an aunt. So that makes five.
“And we’re only one family,” Sandy says. “I do realize we live the legacy of the past, but by him allowing and condoning this behaviour only makes it so other families are going to be experiencing this in the future.”
By “him” she means U.S. President Donald Trump, whose inert stance on the “miracle mineral” was recently unearthed by Newsweek with this marquee quote: “I believe that the movement against asbestos was led by the mob.”
That’s a line beyond the creative imaginings of even the staunchest asbestos apologists. In light of the president’s historic musings and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s recently proposed rule not to ban asbestos but to cause manufacturers and importers to seek the EPA’s approval before using the stuff, the marketing moves by Russian asbestos producer Uralasbest make eminent sense.
For the rest of this article: https://www.thestar.com/business/opinion/2018/07/20/canadas-shameful-asbestos-legacy-doesnt-need-donald-trumps-seal-of-approval.html