Asbestos exporter and member of the McGill Board of Governors (BoG) Roshi Chadha announced last Wednesday that she will take a leave of absence from her positions on McGill’s BoG and that of St. Mary’s Hospital Foundation, in a move that follows calls for her resignation by anti-asbestos activists.

Chadha is a director of Seja Trade Ltd., a company that exported asbestos from the Jeffrey Mine in Asbestos, Quebec, until the mine’s activities were suspended last fall. Seja is a branch of Balcorp Ltd., a company owned by Chadha’s husband that is currently involved in negotiations with the Quebec Government to facilitate the reopening of the mine. 

Chadha’s announcement was followed by a letter submitted to McGill on Feb. 2, in which over 70 medical doctors and health researchers call for her resignation, citing the fact that she is “seeking to re-launch the deadly asbestos trade, and denies the clearly established scientific evidence that all asbestos is harmful to health.”

Kathleen Ruff, an anti-asbestos activist who has been petitioning for Chadha’s resignation since December, condemned the way that the Canadian government allows companies like Chadha’s to export asbestos to countries where people are unaware of its universally acknowledged health risks. While Ruff acknowledged that Chadha has made important contributions to protecting people’s health, she said that McGill implicitly endorses asbestos exports by having Chadha as a member of the BoG. 

“If you are appointing someone to a leading position on a board of governors you should ensure that that person supports the mission of that institution,” Ruff said. “You want to acknowledge someone who sets an example to the students and to the world.”

McGill administration has remained quiet on the subject, apart from a public statement issued by Stuart Cobbett, Chair of the BoG.  

“Mrs. Chadha is a distinguished senior volunteer in the McGill community, and has given years of sustained service to the university through a range of important roles and contributions,” Cobbett wrote in the statement. “We respect her wishes, though reluctantly, and look forward to her return.”

McGill’s reluctance to remove Chadha from the BoG is only one of many criticisms recently directed against the university for its connections with the asbestos industry. In a CBC documentary that aired last Thursday, Professor David Egilman of Brock University accused McGill of allowing the asbestos industry to sponsor scientific studies that misrepresented the health effects of asbestos. Egilman said that the government is using these same studies to justify the reopening of the Jeffrey Mine, which is “against the public interest and will lead to asbestos-related deaths,” according to the letter to McGill. 

The authors of the letter also wrote that they were appalled by the discovery that the university has plans to use asbestos-cement storm pipes in the construction of the McGill University Health Centre.  

“It is particularly cynical that McGill is using asbestos-containing materials in a hospital building,” the letter states. “As well as being willing to endanger its own workers and public maintenance workers, McGill will serve as a priceless “poster child” for the asbestos industry, whose marketing in developing countries will likely feature McGill’s new state-of-the-art hospital.”

Fernand Turcotte, professor at Laval University and lead signer of the letter to McGill, said that he is unimpressed with McGill’s response to these issues. 

“I have both a professional obligation and an obligation as a scientist to oppose any kind of avoidable threat to human health, of which asbestos is a good example,” he said. “We need an institution like McGill [to make] a much clearer form of commitment.”

Ruff urged the McGill administration to reconsider its connections with the asbestos industry.  

“I think it will seriously harm McGill’s image,” Ruff said. “McGill knows that asbestos is killing people around the world … These are unnecessary deaths and we know how to stop them. Instead, McGill is blocking efforts to try and stop these deaths … How can an institute that deals with facts and knowledge refuse to examine very serious ethical issues that have been put before it?”