Takes Lives but can’t Take a Joke? Hey Asbestos, You got Punked!

May 20th, 2011. By Hunter West

I feel for the town of Asbestos, in Quebec. I really do.

Perhaps you haven’t heard of Asbestos, Quebec—a town of 6,000 located in the Canadian province that is home to the Jeffrey asbestos mine. It used to be the world’s largest asbestos mine until recently. And yes, it’s still active. In fact, the mine remains the town’s largest employer. 

You may know that already, if you watched the recent segment of Jon Stewart’s ‘The Daily Show’ that lampooned the mine, and the town. (And if you didn’t, there’s an amateur clip of the segment above.)

There is little doubt that ‘The Daily Show’ was out to make fun of Asbestos, Quebec. How could they not? Asbestos the fiber, in the last several years, has become known as a scourge—the cause of asbestosis, mesothelioma and asbestos cancer. The latency is something like 30 years or more between exposure and certain death.

Asbestos the fiber has been banned in many parts of the world, and is tightly controlled elsewhere. An entire industry has sprung up to facilitate the safe removal of asbestos. The latter could be prohibitively expensive. Perfectly good buildings have been torn down, rather then re-purposed because the costs of asbestos removal were just too great.

For heaven’s sake, there have been examples of family members of asbestos fiber workers meeting their maker just being in close proximity with asbestos (the fiber, not the town). Some wives have died simply washing their husband’s asbestos-laden work clothes.

There is no question that asbestos is bad stuff.

But it is still used. There is still a market for it—such as India, for example. And when the asbestos mine in your town is the largest employer, you don’t take a potential closure of such an employer lightly.

Okay, so the town is named ‘Asbestos’—a once-proud name that has taken a huge PR hit in recent years given the black name the product asbestos, now has.

The message, then, is that if your town is named ‘Asbestos,’ and you continue to mine and export asbestos—then you have to take the occasional ribbing.

So it comes as a bit of a surprise that Bernard Coulombe, a likeable fellow who is the Executive Director of the Jeffrey Mine, was dismayed at the ribbing his town, and his mine got at the hands of ‘The Daily Show’.

He says, according to a recent account in The Globe and Mail in Canada, to have never seen ‘The Daily Show’. In spite of the huge ratings, and larger-than-life profile earned by Jon Stewart, Coulombe has never heard of the man.

He was probably impressed with the idea that an American ‘News’ (tongue-in-cheek) show was coming up to interview him.

Mr. Coulombe must have prepared, I am sure, for a serious interview. What he got was a correspondent ribbing him about mining, and exporting stuff that kills people. Of course, it was a balanced segment. A doctor was interviewed as well, separately, opining about the dangers of asbestos. The Jeffrey Mine in Quebec should be closed, he said.

The contrast of the serious doctor, and the affable head of the Jeffrey Mine being played like a puppet, was palpable. Laughable. And sad, at the same time.

You almost felt sorry for Coulombe, for taking the bait.

But no, not quite.

Because asbestos fibers do, kill people. And the biggest market for chrysotile fiber from the Jeffery Mine is India, which has a reputation for not handling the stuff properly—in spite of a claim by the Jeffrey Mine that it exports only to clients that handle the toxic material responsibly.

I’m surprised ‘The Daily Show’ hasn’t found the town of Asbestos, in Quebec, before now.

But as much as one might feel tempted to cut Coulombe some slack, he doesn’t deserve it.

Okay, so the Jeffrey Mine has customers for its asbestos. That’s not the fault of the Jeffrey Mine. It’s producing something that people in the world, somewhere, want. It’s not that the market is drying up. Markets for chrysotile fiber are thriving—in the developing world, yes, but a market is a market.

And how would a town of 6,000 replace its largest employer? If the mine were to be shuttered, what would take its place that might provide jobs for its townsfolk? Tourism? Hardly—why would you ever flock to a town called ‘Asbestos?’ Would you stay in the Asbestos Motel, or lounge at the Asbestos Bed and Breakfast? Would you take home an Asbestos paperweight? We’re not talking Florida oranges, here…

No, the Jeffrey Mine and the town of Asbestos are really caught between a rock and a hard place. Thus, vermiculite production at the Jeffrey Mine will continue.

As for Mr. Coulombe having his nose out of joint due to the ridicule at the hands of ‘The Daily Show’…well, suck it up.

You should have known. You all should have known.

When you mine chrysotile fiber in a town called Asbestos, you have to know that someone is going to attempt to stab a knife in your back. I would never consent to an interview without knowing who it was that will be interviewing me, and why. If I hadn’t heard of the show I would be finding out, real quick.

When you are the head of an asbestos mine in a town called ‘Asbestos,’ or you’re the head of the town, you must have in place a rock-solid PR policy. So when people like Jon Stewart come calling, you’ll know how to handle it.

Have a thick skin. Have a plan. Have a PR guru whose sole job is to stick handle the PR fallout from an asbestos-weary world.

Be proactive, not reactive.

Going for the laugh is what ‘The Daily Show’ does. And a place called ‘Asbestos’, must know that a laugh is forthcoming. Plan for it. Accept it. Take the hit graciously, but at the same time creatively poke back…

Anything less is, quite simply, incompetence.

Tags: Asbestos, Asbestos Mesothelioma, asbestos_mesothelioma

This was posted on Friday, May 20th, 2011 at 11:32 am and is filed under Asbestos Mesothelioma . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.