Document 655MONvRMeeOMdNoBamGqO8Vm

The Great Asbestos Scam Douglas G. Brookins, with Judith Binder A fibrous family of minerals Is undor attack, ak are all hydrous silicates that avan though Its most Important mambar provas to ba low risk. contain magnesium as well as iron in some cases. Croddolite contains some sodium, and tre- molite and actmobte contain cal cium. b asbestos a major threat to to solve. I consider the current Chrysotile accounts for health? The U.S. Environmental asbestos policy and programs in more than 90 percent of the total Protection Agency (EPA) has the United States a huge seam. asbestos used in the world, whik convinced Congress to pass legis As an educator and scientist, I croddolite and amosite dominate lation requiring all schools in the know the necessity of fully inves the rest Asbestos minerals have United States to inspect for the tigating any topic before drawing unique chemical and physical presence of asbestos and, when a conclusion, but regrettably, the properties. The types with the present, to remove it EPA has not done so with asbes greatest kngth-to-diameter ra Tet in the world community, tos. tio, chrysotile and croddolite, are asbestos is not considered a sig not only fiexibk but also have nificant hazard. Rigorous studies very high tensfie strengths. All in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Asbestos Mltmrmb the asbestos minerals have excel Canada, and the United States lent chemical and thermal stabil testify to the relatively minor There are two types of asbestos ity; they are incombustible and risk posed by asbestos. Compli minerals: chrysotile asbestos add-resistant These properties cating the issue is the grouping and amphibok asbestos. Chryto- make asbestos an excellent mate of several diverse minerals under tik is a hydrated magnesium sil rial for such things as fire retard the label asbestos: While all have icate, one of the serpentine group ants, brake linings, insulation, similar properties that make of minerals commonly found flooring and roofing materials, them useful materials, they vary in geologically altered, high- textiles, and packing materials, widely in health risk. magnesium rock. In many uses, indoding brake When the low risks of asbes The amphibok group of linings, there are good subati- tos are balanced against its life minerals is extremely common in totes for asbestos, saving uses, one comes to realize nature, but only a few varieties The fibrous nature of aabes- that the legislation aimed at eli --croddolite, amosite, txemoBte, toe is, however, of concern to the minating asbestos may create aetinolite, anthophyllite--are; health community. Whik the Oc- more problems than it proposes aabestoe-Hke. In nature, all am- cupational Safety and Health Ad phiboles form elongated crystals ministration (OSHA) defines a fi Aslgn warns citizens of the per and are fibrous to some extent ber as a partick of at least five ceived hazards ofasbestos Oboes. These amphibok asbestos miner- microns in length, with a length- THE WORLD l I DECEMBER 1988 337 HWBUI0005295 NATURAL SCIENCE - SCIENCE ESSAY THE GREAT ASBESTOS SCAM clearly differentiate between am phibole and chrysotile asbestos, with fewer fibers per unit of air allowed for the former than for the latter. Even in the United States, the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hy gienists (ACGIH) makes similar recommendations. The ACGIH position is based on a great many stndies that demonstrate the very low risk of chrysotile asbes tos. Unfortunately, their recom mendations have been totally ig nored by both OSHA and the EPA. Asbestos Knvtroeeare to-diameter ratio (UD) of three or more, mineralogists argue '.hat this description is too broad and that the term fiber should be Top: Chrysotile asbestos. Comprising About 90 percent of mil Industrie! asbestos, this fiber tends te ball up like woolend Is not smellyabsorbedby the body. S Bottom: Croeldollte asbestos. One of the class ofamphlbole fi bers, which are needlelike end more ofa hazard to the hinge. restricted to material with UD of at least 20. They point oat that many minerals can, when crashed, yield fragments with UD of three or more; certainly these are not all fibers. Many health stndies in dicate some causative link be tween amphibole asbestos and Dlnsss. At the same time, no inch correlation is found for chrysotale. In feet, several nations Almost universally the media --including some of the scientif ic literature, popular magazines, and especially the EPA--have branded asbestos a killer of al most epidemic proportions. Jo seph Califano, former secretary of health, education, and wel fare, has estimated 67,000 fatalities per year from as bestos, mainly for lung cancers, while Irving Selikoff of Mt. Sinai School of Medicine has estimated 10,000-20,000 deaths annually.1 At the same time MD. Hogan and D.G. Hoel have stated that each year 12,000 people will die as a result of exposure to asbestos.1 Farther, others have stated that asbestos causes 'death and disease on a scale akin to that of modern warfare."* 1. 1. WAD ad ML Sacha. ***** Mb. Be BmMi Eat bitmm ad Potter.' Aaa. An. SaHie SaU 1 (UH): tfl-UL 338 THE WORLD S I HWBU10005296 `It remains uncertain whether any type ofasbestos acting alone can cause lung cancer In nonsmokers.' There is a problem with such fig ures, however. They are not oily wrong, they are radically wrong. The EPA, apparently with out considering the in-house ad vice of its experts on asbestos, has taken the stand that there is no safe level of asbestos in any form; that is, aero risk to public health can be obtained only at aero levels. (This is the so-called linear hypothesis, where high dose and known health risk ef fects are extrapolated linearly to aero.) Therefore, in response to greatly exaggerated fatality fig ures, fanned by the press and with consequent public pressure on politicians, the EPA has banned the use of asbestos in public schools, and use of asbes tos will be phased out elsewhere in the United States over the next two decades. While in-house scientists from the EPA rank asbestoe in a low-risk category, asbestos is1 1 a Enckg m L Ibmh wt ) mlin tii mIhiitih i)iiilm ihi iminHi md n rnmOm * mantel MUian te Km Tat Oty.- Km M Amdims M Sancm Ammk SB. amt 04 Workarswaartuttprotaethm gaar to ramovaasbaotoa from this factory, Hasaareh Am shown that asbastos Is mors harmful whan ramovad than whan latt In ptaca. DECEMBER 1089 339 HWBU10005297 NATURAL SCIENCE - SCIENCE ESSAY THE GREAT ASBESTOS SCAM ing asbestos in brake linings save lives? Similarly, replacing asbes tos in its fire retardant applica tions will no doubt cause more fatalities due to conflagration. (There are about 5,200 deaths in fires each year in the United States.) The net result: More lives could be lost than saved by maintaining the current policy. Hoatth Kffaeta still perceived by regulators as one of the highest risks to pub lic health. In a recent document, EPA scientists note that com bined cancers from four sub stances, formaldehyde, tetrachloroethane, methylene chloride, and asbestos, may total 250 per year.* How does this low figure correspond to the thousands of Braka linings ramain a principal uaa foraabaatoa. No aueeaaafulah tamata metarial la yat known for this application. There are several diseases that may possibly be traced to asbes tos materials. Asbestosis is a type of pulmonary fibrosis that results in general overall lung weakening; in some cases heart failure may result. For a long time asbestosis was a major con cern. 44ad numerous cases were documented from the 1930s to the 1960s, when conditions in the workplace were less stringent. Mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung lining, is almost alwayB f terminal, and it is estimated that l 80 percent of these cases are due to inhalation of asbestos fibers cancers per year estimated by --specifically crocidolite--and EPA from asbestos alone? Why less commonly to other am- has its official position remained phibok asbestos varieties. Espe unchanged? cially prone to mesothelioma are Asbestos in brake linings crocidolite miners, their families certainly provides obvious bene who lived near the mines, and fits; the EPA, however, has or particularly crocidolite asbestos dered removal of asbestos even industrial workers. Since the la though the use of inferior substi tency period for this disease is tutes may lead to fatalities doe to about 35-40 years, most deaths brake failures. Thus, will replac- occur in people over age 60. In the United States, cases of mesoth a U.Unuttnn * L TJiMSd Bad--: elioma will continue to diminish A Omaivin inanut ei EsrireaaaBal Fwfc. km Oiwtfri laved.* Feb. 1M7. a. each year as most exposures to 340 THE WORLD 4 I HWBUI0005298 The incidence of lung cancer among the asbestos miners'families was below that for the Canadian public. eroddolite and mixed crotidolitechrysotile took place 40-50 years ago. Even so, mesothelioma re mains a rare cancer. In Turkey, however, mesothelioma is linked to a fibrous zeolite, erionite, which is a complex hydrous aluminosilicate of calcium, po tassium, and sodium, very unlike the ferromagnesian amphiboles eroddolite and amosite. Lung cancer caused by expo sure to asbestos is of prime con cern to many people; yet, the available data are confusing. It remains uncertain whether any type of asbestos acting alone can cause lung cancer in nonsmok ers,* according to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine.* Very simply, the inridence of lung cancer in asbestos workers who smoked is high; the rate among nonsmoking asbestos workers is so low as to make any causative relationship open to question. For some years Malcolm Boss of the U.S. Geological Sur vey has been researching asbes tos and its health effects. In 1984 Boss noted that combined asbestosis, mesothelioma, and lung 4. XT. Uohmb te 111 Cm. y------ i*tedCtea.'teZte*4te*aJ*lMate aoum* mi-w. cancer (along with other cancers) due to exposure to asbestos may be as high as 500 per year, but certainly not in the high tens of thousands as commonly reported in the media.1 Further, Boss summarizes the data for families of asbestos miners in the chrysotile-minmg towns of Asbestos and Thetford Vfinxi in Quebec, Here, the data are far nonminers as, almost universally, the miners smoked during their working years. The level of asbestos dust in the air often reached hundreds of fibers per cubic centimeter, and although dust control was at tempted, high fiber levels persist ed. Nevertheless, the incidence of lung cancer among the asbestos miners' families was below that far the Canadian public. More over, the drinking water used by the miners and their families reached the incredible range of 170 million to LS billion fibers per liter, yet the incidence of can cer among the miners' was not above normal Although the U.S. National I. H. 1ml "A am? tl afcanamkoad tea* kMa ad atef mwurnii to tear ad kakl tea a n umiirinil esaUT**?? Im ttriak.* laariaa Sodatr ad Tatrki tad m.*--t.u Bpetel Tackded MScatte, a. B4 CUM): Sl-IM. Besearch Council has proposed that a high asbestos fiber con tent in drinking waters can lend to gastrointestinal and other cancers, no substantial data have been presented.1 The lowest incidence of lung-related diseases was found among workers in chrysotile mines and among their friction product manufacturing cohorts. Early data suggested a chryso tile asbestos and cancer link, but when the data far chryBotile miners and textile workers with either hmg cancer or mesothe lioma were reinspected in fine de tail contaminants of amphibole asbestos were found to be present or the cohorts had had a history of smoking. Chrysotile asbestos com monly occurs as fibrous bundles, and these bundles may be blocked from entering the deep hmg at bifurcations in the lung airway. Further, magnesium is some what more readily leached from chrysotile than from the amphi bole asbestos minerals, which are not farmed in fibrous bundles and therefore commonly reach the deeper parts of the lung where a --' later C Stem. Nates! ate fnafl, Athtnjcrm FOm Nntecmptnm t Bmlik tub Nstea! later ftaa. m*l DECEMBER 1989 341 HWBUI0005299 NATURAL SCIENCE - SCIENCE ESSAY THE GREAT ASBESTOS SCAM damage develops. -Whether the cancers associated with asbestos are a direct consequence of exposore or whether the asbestos amphiboles act as cocarcinogens is not known. The available data, however, overwhelmingly sup port the generally innocuous na ture of chrysotile in rocks and in many industrial applications. Chrysotile by itself does not carry a high risk factor, and can be used, with few exceptions, for all asbestos products. It wouldbe wise therefore to replace croridolite and other amphibole asbes tos with chrysotile. Ulnars ramova raw aabaatoa ora at Black lake, Quabac, Cana da. Naarly all atudlas linking asbastos to tong cancar wars dona on asbastos mlnar%,Tnoadofmbam alsosmokad. Hm4*trally Occurring Aabaatoa It is interesting to note that many in the United States have been subjected to extremely high background fiber content in air and in water. In the mid-1970s, the National Research Council reported (for rural areas of the United States and presumably all such areas in the world) that fi ber is a naturally occurring con stituent of air at about 10 fibers per liter. At the same time, the fiber content in water is tens of thousands to millions of fibers per liter. Amphiboles are, as men tioned above, extremely common components of many rocks. But yrv*iit> is mined only in the Re public of South Africa, while cro- ddolite is mined only in South Af rica and Australia. Should we be concerned about all amphibolebearing rocks? Reported geo graphic patterns of disease and death do not indicate a correla tion with amphibole content.7 Serpentinized rocks in Cali fornia are commonly very rich in chrysotile, as are many me tamorphosed dolomites. The air and water in these areas are of ten quite high in fibrous mineral content; yet there are no abnor mally high incidences of lung cancer, mesothelioma, or asbestosis. Nevertheless, near San Jose, California, a dike cuts through serpentinized rock con taining small amounts of chryso tile asbestos, and the EPA has designated this a superfund site! Tho Schoola and the Seam And now for what amounts to the greatest scam of all: the mandat ed removal of asbestos materials from our public schools. First, the EPA has reported that at least 50 percent of all air in U.S. schools ranges between 0.00003 and 0.03 fibers per cubic centime ter (ambient air is generally re corded at .01 f/cm*). Second, there are no data to support a causative link to cancer from oc casional inhalation of low-level fi bers. Third, the EPA through the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA), is now T. XL Ckaaot tad EC. Boh*, tiHi !: f inrUt,itti'j a Bttfci tad Pitta ' (Mtfiai Jbatf? tf Amtrim Mamm 342 THE WORLD & I HWBUI0005300 $ mandated to interact with all school officials to inspect and re move all asbestos from oar pablic schools; it has neither provided the methods for determining safe levels nor the guidance for removing asbestos. Fourth, the EPA, fueled by a willing media, advocates that any and all asbes tos will kill oar schoolchildren: There is "no safe level of asbestos (all types).* Last, the decision for mitigating asbestos is left to school boards, special interest groups, eager contractors, and lawyers--few of whom have the background or understanding to differentiate between chrysotOe and croddolite. Often the tre mendous price tag will fall upon the taxpayer without saving a single life. To emphasize the absurdity of the EPA stand on asbestos in schools, just consider that the quantitative risk assessment by researchers from Tulane Medical School, who argue, even for some what inflated estimates of air borne fibers, an annual mortality rate of 0.02 to 0.30 per million (assuming five years attendance in the school and an average life expectancy of 75 years). This vanishingly small range for hu mans aged 5-14 is compared with other risks per million population (fatalities per million in par entheses): Long-term smoking (1,200), home accidents (60), drowning (27), bicycling (15), high-school football (10), natural radiation from building mate rials (10), and four tablespoons of peanut batter a day (8).* Further, leaving most as bestos where it is poses less threat than its removal When removal has been undertaken, the fiber content per unit of air has increased.* In (fee Boy*] Com mission of Asbestos (RCA) has thoroughly investigated the risk from asbestos in the schools. They find the risk so slight as to warrant its removal neither from schools nor from any bafidings maintained in a normal fashion. In the United States, the price tag for an unnecessary cleanup will range from Sl00-$150 billion, excluding the eoet of the inspection. Yet no lives may be saved by this action. Let's ask who benefits from asbestos cleanup. Contractors will be paid handsomely, and pol iticians will get good press and subsequent votes when the media and environmental groups urge compliance with the laws. Law yers will prosecute, and the EPA will receive federal funds to per petuate huge power groups. Who pays? You and I and others like us. My objection is not with in tended goals of sound envi ronmental policy but rather with huge sums being spent at the ex pense of other worthwhile pro grams and without any positive impact on public health. The EPA has not been willing to listen to its own scientists concerning 06EA's stand on asbestos. The EPA Is willing to ignore tremendous a -I^S Bkk.* amounts of high quality scientific research, while giving its atten tion to sadly undereducated en vironmentalists who accuse it of abandoning the environment. Coneiumtent It has b--n clearly dnmtwntsH thatthereisalowriskofchryaotile asbestos. This is true not only in the United States but also, convincing studies demonstrate, in Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and other countries. Since this amounts to at least 90 percent of asbestos, then one can legitimately challenge the policy set by OSHA, the EPA, and other environmental "watchdogs.' Re placing amphibole asbestos with ehrysotik asbestos will allow us to take advantage of this excellent material while at the same time eliminating the very real albeit small risk from amphibole asbestos. Finally, it is apparent that tite EPA should reevaluate its data and take the initiative to ed ucate the public. Its orders and recommendations for asbestos removal and phaseout must be teaemdeda ZbmfU* Breebat it pn&uvt of foiftr at Hu Uxsrrrritt ifSee Med ea epeeiaimap ta radieaetm aad haeardomt wotit maaaprwuai aad eaadnameetai peaIon themittrp. Ju dith Biadrr it ea editorial aeeietaat m He Deportment of Gteiepp at Hu Umieereitp efNe Mexico. DECEMBER 1869 343 HWBUI0005301