The town of Asbestos stands by its namesake.
Gilles Morin, a popular community physician who worked for the company for 20 years before going into family medicine, agreed. “The rate of exposure to chrysotile fibres today is infinitesimally small,” he said. “I’m fed up with being treated like an imbecile or a contract killer because I support asbestos.”
Mr. Nicholls, one of his patients, walks slowly around his home, catching his breath as his lungs slowly harden from a disease that will eventually suffocate him. But he too feels the industry is “not as dangerous as it once was” – though he is genuinely worried about the health of less-protected workers abroad.