"WHO Rebukes Would-Be Quebec Asbestos Magnate"

"Baljit Chadha, the entrepreneur behind Quebec’s controversial asbestos exports, has earned a rare public rebuke from an official with the World Health Organization for distorting its position on the safety of the carcinogenic product.

'We have been receiving a lot of expressions of concerns from around the world that the WHO has been misquoted,'Ivan Ivanov, the team leader of occupational health at the WHO Department of Public Health and Environment, said in a phone interview from Geneva.

Dr. Ivanov was critical of Mr. Chadha for stating in a recent newspaper commentary that a WHO-sanctioned level of exposure to asbestos 'poses no health risk.'

'There is no safe threshold of exposure to all forms of asbestos,' Dr. Ivanov said."

Julian Sher reports for the Toronto Globe and Mail October 17, 2011.