Posted on November 16, 2017

Deadline: December 10, 2017

The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) is working fast and hard to build continued support for S.2072, the Alan Reinstein Ban Asbestos Now Act of 2017 (ARBAN), the ban asbestos bill introduced in the Senate on Nov. 2. View the official bill online here.

As part of this effort, we are asking our U.S. and international allies to sign on to a joint letter urging the U.S. Senate leadership to swiftly pass ARBAN so that it can be signed into law and start saving lives. 

ADD YOUR NAME OR ORGANIZATION HERE: Sign on to the Joint Letter in Support the Alan Reinstein Ban Asbestos Now Act of 2017

Asbestos claims the lives of 15,000 Americans and an estimated 200,000 worldwide every year, yet it remains legal and lethal in the U.S. In fact, asbestos imports here doubled in 2016, and the national mesothelioma death rate has gone up, too. Despite this, the U.S. is the only industrialized Western nation to not ban this known carcinogen.

With S.2072, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would be able to make the manufacture, processing, use, commercial distribution, and disposal of asbestos illegal after 18 months of its passage. 

Banning asbestos in America will not only be a monumental step forward for public health in this country; the international impact will be significant. Since the U.S. imports all asbestos used here in America, a ban will decrease demand in the global trade. This policy shift from the last economic superpower still using asbestos will also send a strong message around the globe that the age of asbestos use is ending. 

Organizations coming out in early support of this bill include: the American Public Health Association (APHA), Center for Asbestos Related Disease (CARD), Libby, MT, Environmental Information Association (EIA), Environmental Working Group (EWG), Global Ban Asbestos Network (GBAN), Less Cancer, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families (SCHF), and internationally, Associação Brasileira dos Expostos ao Amianto (ABREA).

Together, we will get this ban passed and signed into law!

Linda Reinstein
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