Book Review

Sub-Saharan Africa

The history of asbestos mining in South Africa, and of its catastrophic effect on public health and the environment, has long been hidden from public view, partly because asbestos has been relatively much less important to the mineral-rich South African economy than the mining of gold, diamonds, or coal, but also because the dangers of asbestos were either misunderstood, ignored, or willfully suppressed.

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Awareness of asbestos's toxic properties was deliberately obscured by the mining companies, a situation abetted by the failure of the South African state to regulate asbestos mining in the same way it did gold.The absence of industrial unions in the asbestos sector (white as well as black) did not help to bring health issues to public attention.Those disposed to tackle problems of pulmonary disease were mislead because symptoms of asbestosis were easily mistaken as tuberculosis or silicosis. The terminal and untreatable cancer of mesothelioma (which can be caused by even the most incidental exposure to asbestos fiber or products) was long unrecognized, as the disease takes up to forty years to become manifest. Even when the dangers of asbestos finally became widely accepted, its concealed presence in industrial and building products like lagging or roofing meant that the scale of the problem was not easily comprehended.

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