Brown group advocates for South African asbestos victims

After researching the asbestos-related health and economic problems of South African mine workers, Nancy Jacobs, Lundy Braun and their students brought the victims' voices to their country's Parliament.

by Cynthia Ferguson

A fine — often invisible — dust covers their villages. It finds its way into their schools and houses, blows across their playgrounds, and settles into the earth they till.

The dust is asbestos, the lingering vestige of a once thriving industry in South Africa. Although the mines were shut down in the 1990s, they have left a legacy of disease that will continue to sicken and kill South Africans for years to come.

Nancy Jacobs (front, left) and Lundy Braun (second row, left) pose with some of the research group members in Kuruman, South Africa.

"It is arguably South Africa's single largest environmental health catastrophe," says Nancy Jacobs, assistant professor of history and Africana studies."In areas where asbestos was mined for decades, the disease burden is staggering. In some areas, it is estimated that over 20 percent of the population is sick."

Jacobs first became aware of the magnitude of the problem while conducting historical research in 1997 in the rural town of Kuruman, a former mining site in the Northern Cape Province. She was shocked to find men and women — some as young as 30 — gasping for breath and coping with debilitating lung diseases. Although no definitive statistics exist, it is believed that one of every 100 adults in South Africa dies of mesothelioma, a very rare cancer of the cells lining the pleura, which surrounds the lung. Virtually unknown in most parts of the world, mesothelioma is caused exclusively by asbestos.

Back at Brown, Jacobs talked with Lundy Braun, associate professor of pathology and environmental studies, about a possible research project investigating the asbestos issue in South Africa."She was very interested," Jacobs recalls."And she got others at Brown excited about it."

"The project fit perfectly with my interest in the history of public health, particularly occupational health," explains Braun.

In the fall of 2000, Sophia Kisting, a South African doctor with the Industrial Health Research Group (IHRG) in Cape Town and a leader in asbestos activism, spoke at Brown."She inspired a lot of students," says Jacobs, who had invited Kisting to the campus."After hearing her, they really wanted to do something."

Little did they know then how much they would in fact be able to do. Less than a year after Kisting's visit to Brown, six undergraduates would be part of an international team fully responsible for a report requested by South Africa's Parliament. That report, presented to members of Parliament in October, was based on eight weeks of research and interviews in Cape Town and rural South Africa.

The team included 12 students (six from Brown, three from other American universities, two from South Africa and one from Madagascar) and four faculty members (Jacobs, Braun, Kisting and another colleague from South Africa). Thanks to fund-raising by the Americans, the researchers and students from South Africa and Madagascar could afford to participate.

"It was important to us that they were part of this effort," says Jacobs."We didn't want to be seen as Americans coming to fix South Africa's problems."

To further ensure this, the group put itself under the supervision of Kisting and the IHRG. Kisting asked the team to evaluate steps taken since1998 when South Africa held a National Asbestos Summit and released what Jacobs describes as"a very progressive document." Because it approached asbestos as a community problem and called for participatory decision making, Jacobs points to that directive as a model for public health programs.

But despite genuine efforts by the government to address the recommendations made in that report, it is clear that much more needs to be done. No more than half of the nation's former mines have been adequately rehabilitated, and most of them lie just miles from where people live. Fibers of crocidolite — the deadliest form of asbestos and the one mined in Kuruman — can travel dozens of miles from the original site, contaminating vast stretches of the impoverished countryside.

In addition, many of the men and women who once mined and worked with asbestos are now virtually unemployable — either because their health is already poor or employers fear it will be soon. Compensation for these former workers is generally inadequate. Sadly, with a latency period that is often 30 years or more, asbestos-related diseases — asbestosis, lung cancer and the deadly mesothelioma — will not disappear soon.

The group began its investigation last June in Cape Town where the students spent two weeks reviewing existing research and interviewing union leaders, activists and government officials. The researchers then split up and headed into rural villages and towns to conduct interviews with those who work and live near sites of former mines. Many of the group went to Kuruman, staying in a dormitory on the grounds of a former mission.

Having learned while first in Cape Town that Parliament had requested a report, the team spent its final few weeks collecting notes, reviewing research and drafting the presentation.

"Learning that the government wanted an official report certainly intensified the process," Braun says."But it also meant there would be a real outcome."

The report was presented entirely by South Africans, including a resident of Kuruman interviewed by the students.

"We tried to bring the community's voices to the government," says Marc Manseau, one of the six Brown undergraduates on the team."This was a tool to draw attention to the issues, and our hope is they'll eventually use this report to make policy changes." The other Brown students who participated in the research project were Katherine Saxton, Almea Matanock, Theo Luebke, Alice Kidder and Kristen Erickson.

Braun stresses that the work started last summer is an on-going effort. "It wasn't a one-time enrichment trip," she insists. Three undergraduates — Anniedi Essien, Julie Falender and Anna Greene — have joined Manseau and Saxton to continue the work under way.

"It's important to bring in new students so the level of attention can be sustained," says Braun."We're waiting to hear from our South African collaborators to decide what the next steps will be. It may shift to doing more work here."

The recommendations addressed in the October report were broken down into five categories: rehabilitation of mines and dumps; health services for those suffering from asbestos-related diseases; compensation for victims; education and public awareness of the asbestos problem; and various alternative measures. It is hoped that much of the money needed to address these recommendations will come out of ongoing litigation against the international corporations that owned and operated the mines

"Many of the problems facing South Africa are the legacy of colonialism," notes Braun.

"This town was built on asbestos," said one Kuruman resident to a student researcher."As children, we played on it, and in later years we mined it and lifted it up on to trucks. If it was not for asbestos, this town would not be here."

More information on the project can be found at the Africana Studies Web site.