Publication date : 2014
Number of pages : 180
Maria Roselli, journalist
With the collaboration of :
Laurent Vogel (ETUI), Barry Castleman (Environmental consultant), Laurie Kazan-Allen (International Ban Asbestos), Kathleen Ruff (Rideau Institute).
Edited by :
For decades asbestos was considered an ideal substance and therefore was called 'the mineral of the twentieth century'. Even though the fiber had already proven much earlier to cause various ailments, a real boom began in the 1950s and prospered everywhere in Europe.
This book retraces the history of the Swiss asbestos cement company Eternit, investigating the strategy it developed – together with other asbestos industrialists – to prevent this carcinogen from being outlawed until, in 1999, an EU Directive was finally adopted to this end. The book also reviews the struggle of the asbestos workers and their families to gain official recognition of, and compensation for, the harm suffered.
ETUI, Brussels, ISBN
Géraldine Hofmann, Publications Officer