Asbestos Blues: Labour, Capital, Physicians, and the State in South Africa

Abstract

From the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s, blue asbestos was mined in South Africa for worldwide use. More recently, it has been identified as one of the most dangerous carcinogens to which humans can be exposed. Yet the asbestos mining industry and the South African government have been slow to respond to the health concerns of miners and to the environmental devastation, which has left vast areas of the Northern Cape permanently hazardous. In Asbestos Blues, Jock McCulloch explores the extent to which the South African government participated in turning company profits at the expense of poor black workers. Were mining companies, manufacturers, and government regulators covering up the risks of asbestos mining? What measures are being taken to clean up the toxic environment? What is being done to address workers' health? Who will be held responsible? This hard-hitting book points to corporate greed as the root cause of South Africa's human and environmental disaster.

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