McGill University’s ties to the asbestos industry are under the scanner after two documentaries on the CBC and Radio-Canada alleged the university’s researchers received funding from the industry to write favourable studies.
The CBC released industry documents Feb. 2 that suggest the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association (QAMA) paid John Corbett McDonald and other researchers at McGill University’s School of Occupational Health nearly $1 million between 1966 and 1972.
McDonald headed a McGill study on asbestos safety that looked at the health of 11,000 Quebec miners and mill workers from 1966 to the late 1990s. The revelations have prompted McGill to launch a preliminary review into the study.
The QAMA, which was later renamed the Asbestos Institute and is now called the Chrysotile Institute, touts this landmark study to prove that chrysotile asbestos is safe and to promote its use and export around the world.
The Chrysotile Institute has received nearly $20 million in funding from the Canadian government since the 1980s, according to the institute’s website.
Following the documentary, a group of medical health professionals from around the world and the world sent a letter to McGill calling for the removal of an asbestos trader from the university’s board and for McGill to “cease using and cease promoting the use of asbestos.”
New Democratic Party MP Pat Martin said Conservatives have been too supportive of Quebec’s struggling asbestos industry.
“The Conservatives and the asbestos industry have been relying on junk science,” Martin said, “It’s a pity that a great Canadian university has now been dragged into this.”
Martin said he hopes more Conservative MPs will rethink their party’s stance on the industry following the new revelations, calling this a “tipping point.”
“They have been defending the indefensible,” Martin said.
David Eidelman, McGill’s vice-principal (health affairs) and dean of medicine, released a statement saying a review was being undertaken to ensure McDonald’s research “was conducted according to the rigorous scientific standards for which McGill is known.”
Chrysotile, or white asbestos, is the only form of asbestos mined in Canada today. While its use in Canada is severely restricted, it can be exported to other countries. Most of the asbestos mined in Canada is exported to developing countries, especially India, which have lax regulations on asbestos use, according to the Montreal Gazette.
Asbestos, a fibrous substance used as bonding material in construction, is believed to cause lung cancer when the fibers get lodged in the lungs of people who come into contact with the substance. Proponents of the industry, however, claim that chrysotile asbestos is safe when handled properly.
“Our opponents are basing their opposition . . . on erroneous facts,” said John Aylen, a spokesperson for Balcorp Ltd., a Montreal asbestos trader. “They’re basing their position on the experience of the past when [asbestos] exposure was much higher.”
“It is totally unethical that we mine asbestos to export it to other countries when no one in their right mind in Canada will use it,” said Donna Maziak, program director for thoracic surgery at the Ottawa Hospital, who also signed the letter to McGill.
McGill should have a “rigorous look into the data,” she added.
Kathleen Ruff, an anti-asbestos campaigner with the Ottawa-based Rideau Institute, who also signed the letter, said the “review is tainted” because it wasn’t being conducted by an independent party.
She said it was important McGill “act with integrity” and conduct an independent review into the study, because it has received complaints about it in the past.
“It’s been hidden away and covered up for too long,” she said.
