The Daily Show Rips Into Asbestos Town
May 23, 2011 - John Davenport
The satirical news program The Daily Show ran an uncharactisticly hard-hitting news segment on the Canadian town of Asbestos on Thursday, May 12th, 2011. The piece covers the asbestos mine that a Canadian Medical Association doctor referred to as a national embarrassment.
The piece started as most Daily Show segments do, with a reporter (in this case Aasif Mandvi) asking humorous questions that deviate from the actual news story. Mandvi riffs about asbestos executive Bernard Coulombe’s accent, and a doctor’s tie color, but then the piece takes a more scornful turn.
The town of Asbestos in Quebec is mining chrysotile asbestos and exporting it to countries such as India for processing.
Bernard Coulombe claims that India follows regulation safety procedures when handling the material, and it is at this point when The Daily Show splices in recent footage taken from a documentary about the industry showing Indian workers gripping loads of asbestos with their bare hands. A single bandana protects the mouth and nose of one of the workers.
Coulombe defends his industry by stating that Indians are “used to the pollution”.
At this point in the interview, Mandvi can no longer patronize.
“No, I’m just kidding,” he says. “'I mean, selling them things that are going to kill them…that's my family over there."
Earlier in the segment, a Canadian Medical Association doctors shows the x-ray of a patient with mesothelioma, and Mandvi reminds us that asbestos is the cause 100,000 deaths per year worldwide.
Workers' Memorial Day commemorated in the United States New drug improved Chemo effectiveness on people with Mesothelioma Weitz & Luxenberg brings you the latest news about asbestos.
