The Center for Public Integrity

Cozy ties between lobbyists and politicians are business as usual.

Under industry influence, smoking reforms became gradual half-steps.

A fight over South America’s toughest smoking controls.

For the past year, the Canadian Public Health Association has sought details on the financial relationship between Canada’s Ministry of Natural Resources and the Chrysotile Institute, a Montreal-based asbestos lobby group that figures prominently in the just-released ICIJ/BBC investigation, Dangers in the Dust.

A warm welcome to new ICIJ media partner, Tehelka magazine in India, which just published an exposé on the growth and influence of the asbestos industry in that country. The story, part of ICIJ’s recent investigation “Dangers in the Dust: Inside the Global Asbestos Trade,” reveals how despite being banned or restricted in 52 countries for its toxicity, asbestos is big business in developing countries like India, where the cheap, fire-resistant building material may be all the poor can afford.

ICIJ rolled out its biggest project in months this week: Dangers in the Dust – Inside the Global Asbestos Trade. We’ve had a half-dozen of our reporters team up with the BBC’s International News Services, and it’s been a great partnership. Together, we’ve covered eight countries in nine months, from the Russian city of Asbest to the Mexico City suburb of Iztapalapa. What we found is now getting global coverage: that the asbestos industry, now banned and restricted in 52 countries, has moved big-time to the developing world, prompting health experts to warn of new epidemics of cancer and lung disease in places like China, India and Brazil.

For China, the world’s biggest asbestos consumer, the worst may be yet to come. Widespread use began in the late 1970s, and given the lag time between exposure and the onset of disease, health experts say, China’s appetite for the mineral will have lethal consequences into the middle of this century.

Mexico uses ten times the amount of asbestos as the United States, relying heavily on imports from Canada. A Mexico City doctor says that the number of asbestos-related deaths in Mexico could rise to 5,000 per year as a result of the nation’s loosely regulated use of the toxic mineral.

Russia produces nearly 1 million tons of asbestos a year, almost half the world’s supply, and boasts strong government backing. “We feel the absolute support of the state,” says an industry lobbyist. One mine, near the aptly named city of Asbest, is nearly half the size of Manhattan.

Although U.S. asbestos use has plummeted from its peak in the 1970s, the mineral continues to kill an estimated 10,000 Americans each year. Lawsuits have cost the industry $70 billion in damages and litigation, and now a third wave of lawsuits, brought by auto mechanics and others, is moving through the courts.