by Laurie Kazan-Allen

This month we mark the 15th anniversary of the ground-breaking Global Asbestos Congress 2000: Past, Present and Future [Congresso Mundial do Amianto: Passado, Presente e Futuro] (GAC 2000) which took place over four days (September 17-20, 2000) in Latin America’s asbestos heartland 1

GAC 2000 was held in Osasco, an industrial suburb of São Paulo, a municipality that was for decades the site of Latin America’s largest asbestos-cement industrial complex. Tens of thousands of Brazilians were exposed to asbestos fibers liberated by the operations of the Eternit asbestos factory; many of them died prematurely from asbestos-related diseases. In 1995, members of the workforce in collaboration with Labor Inspector Fernanda Giannasi decided to form an asbestos victims’ support group – the Associação Brasileira dos Expostos ao Amianto [Brazilian Association of the Asbestos-Exposed] (ABREA). Read more

Courtesy: IBAS