아래 내용은 홍콩의 "노동자보건센터" 소속인 Sabrina가 이메일링한 내용을 번역하였습니다.

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현재 홍콩에서는 아주 특수한 몇몇의 상황을 제외하고 석면사용금지법안을 준비중입니다. 하지만 그 특수한 몇몇의 상황 중에 하나가 문제인데 석면이 포함된 한약(proprietary Chinese medicine)의 수입과 공급은 허용한다 라는 것입니다. 석면을 섭취하면 건강에 유해하다는 과학적 증거들을 지금 확보하고 있습니다. 국제암연구소에서는 석면섭취와 암의 발생은 제한적인 증거가 있다고 하고 있습니다. (참고로 석면의 흡입과 폐암 발병은 충분한 근거가 있다고 되어 있음) 홍콩의 노동자 건강센터에서는 홍콩정부에게 석면이 포함된 한약재의 거래는 유해하다며 압박하고 있습니다. 한약재에 석면이 포함되어 있다는 경고문구를 부탁하는 것만으로는 충분치 않습니다.
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아래는 원문입니다.

Dear Sugio,

Greeting from Hong Kong! I am Sabrina, Karen’s colleague from the Hong Kong Workers’ Health Centre.

As you might have noted already, Hong Kong is currently undergoing the process of passing a bill to ban all forms of asbestos with few exemptions will be granted. One of the exemption is to permit the supplying or import of a proprietary Chinese medicine that contains asbestos material. Our centre is very concerned about this and would like to raise more evidences to support the fact the ingesting asbestos may pose harm to human health.

However it seems like research evidences are not consistent in this area (i.e. ingesting asbestos and its association to cancer) and IARC also claimed that there is limited evidence in humans. We would like to know if our a-ban colleagues have any idea, feedback or heard of anything related to the ingestion of asbestos?

We want to press the government to take away this exemption as the proprietary Chinese medicine containing asbestos materials is likely to be harmful. If not we still believe a warning label is worth to be printed on those proprietary Chinese medicine for informing the users! Therefore we hope to seek the support from the a-ban colleagues in sharing any research evidence or feedback so that we can further advocate our concern to the government.

Can you help us to forward this email to other a-ban colleagues as I have difficulty in reaching to the group through the email? Thank you!