The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), which combines education, advocacy, and community to help ensure justice for asbestos victims and work towards asbestos prevention, has announced the launch of the 14th Annual Global Asbestos Awareness Week (GAAW) 1st-7th April 2018.
Global Asbestos Awareness Week is dedicated to awareness and prevention, with each day featuring educational resources from leading organizations, guest blogs, videos, and asbestos victims’ stories, including select materials translated into six different languages for global distribution. The week culminates on April 7th with an online, worldwide candlelight vigil.
Building on strength and collaboration, this year’s Global Asbestos Awareness Week will focus on:
1.Banning the mining, manufacturing, and use of asbestos
2.Preventing asbestos exposure
3.Increasing compliance and enforcement of existing laws and regulations
4.Strengthening international partnerships
This year GAAW will feature the 30-second animated public service announcement (PSA) video, "Asbestos: The Killer You Can’t See,” that captures the tragic reality about deadly asbestos. Through hand-drawn animation by Chocolate Moose Media (CMM), the PSA reveals how a young girl loses her father to asbestos, highlighting the insidious and nearly invisible fibers.
In addition to English, the PSA is available in five other languages— Russian, Hindi, Portuguese, French, and Spanish — in order to reach new populations, especially in nations who continue to mine, use, and export asbestos. It is also available in a mobile-friendly format.
Linda Reinstein, mesothelioma widow and ADAO co-founder said: “We are excited to bring our educational messages to an even wider audience by collaborating again with McOnie, a U.K. based public relations firm, who are expanding our ability to distribute our messages globally. The simple truth is asbestos kills and prevention remains the only cure. Asbestos-caused diseases like mesothelioma can take years, even decades, to kill, but the hidden risk of asbestos fibers only takes a few heartbeats to tell.”
Asbestos is a known carcinogen and there is no safe level of exposure. Since the 19th century, asbestos was widely used in construction, shipbuilding, and the automotive industry. Without a ban, asbestos remains legal and lethal and nearly 200,000 people die each year from preventable asbestos-caused diseases.
Since its founding in 2004, ADAO has worked with the U.S. Senate to unanimously pass thirteen Asbestos Awareness Week Resolutions and secured five U.S. Surgeon General asbestos warnings in an effort to prevent exposure, to help eliminate deadly asbestos-caused diseases.
