Document B8GDBERrx4mYOoNNKbarpbwvw

FILE NAME: Sprayed Asbestos (SPRA) DATE: 2008 DOC#: SPRA048 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: Article from Journal of Risk & Governance - Fire and Risk-The Controversy Over the Role of Fire-Retardants in the World Trade Center Disaster Journal o f Risk and Governance (2008) Volume 1, Issue 3, pp. ISSN: 1939-5922 2010 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. Fire and Risk: The Controversy over the Role of Fire-Retardants in the World Trade Center Disaster Geoffrey Tweedale* Business History, Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, Aytoun Street, Manchester M l 3GH Abstract ; In the aftermath of the World Trade Center (WTC) conflagration in 2001, a debate began about the role of fire-retardants. Some commentators argued that the decision to dispense with asbestos during the construction of the Twin Towers played a key role in their subsequent collapse. It was further argued that the disaster was a consequence of the `asbestos hysteria' that had supposedly gripped New York in the 1960s and 1970s. This article, based on contemporary documents and recent investigations of 9/11, shows that there is no evidence linking asbestos (or the lack of it) to the collapse of the Towers and that the debate about asbestos in the WTC has been largely `manufactured'. Introduction `I am sure [asbestos] spraying contractors find it difficult to imagine their towering monuments will one day crumble beneath* the wreckers' ball, but that is the history o f our every rebuilding city All the built-in.hazards will again be freed to float into the surrounding atmosphere ... [and so] ... we are certainly building an environmental hazard into the future' (Rickies, 1970). * This warning, made by a New York City environmental commissioner, has proved eerily prescient in relation to the World Trade Center (WTC) - though certainly not in a way that the official could have foreseen. One unforgettable sight of the 9/11 attack was the collapse of the Towers amidst a billowing dust cloud that enveloped lower Manhattan (Claudio, 2001) Metaphorically that cloud has never quite settled, because the dust has remained a source of considerable debate. The fire-retardants that had been used when the WTC was constructed included a significant quantity of asbestos. Because of the toxicity of asbestos, this had potential perils for rescue workers and also for those who inhaled dust afterwards (Landrigan, * E-mail- G.Tweedale @mmu.ac.uk 2 Geoffrey Tweedale 2004). The nature of the fire-retardant materials in the Towers also had implications for key questions relating to their collapse. Did the structures disintegrate so swiftly because their fire protection was deficient; or was the reason to be found in their original design? (Seabrook, 2001) What added an extra dimension to these questions was the fact that during the construction of the WTC in the early 1970s a decision had been made - based on a growing awareness of the health hazard - to switch from asbestos to man-made mineral fibres. It was the latter which made up the bulk of the fire-retardants in the WTC. It was soon suggested that the buildings might have stood for longer had asbestos not been discontinued. This debate began even while the rubble was smouldering. It was launched by Steven Milloy, a commentator for Fox News, on 14 September 2001, only days after the terrorist attacks. In an article entitled `Asbestos Could Have Saved WTC Lives', Milloy wrote that the WTC might have stood longer, preventing many casualties, had the use of asbestos fireresistant materials not been curtailed. Milloy cited experts, who questioned the efficacy of the asbestos-free insulation that was applied to the steel on the upper floors. He also quoted the late Herbert Levine, who according to Milloy invented sprayed asbestos fireproofing in the late 1940s. Apparently Levine frequently would say that, `if a file breaks out above the 64lh floor, that building will fall down.' If Levine was the prescient hero of events, then for Milloy the chief villain in the decision to abandon asbestos was Professor living J. Selikoff, a physician at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, who had first publicised the dangers of asbestos insulation. Milloy concluded that `Selikoff was wrong to press the panic button about ... asbestos. We may now be paying a horrible price for junk science-fuelled asbestos hysteria' (Milloy, 2001). Within days, Milloy's article was picked up both by The Times in London (Henderson, 2001) and by The New York Times, which ran a feature that asked a `Haunting Question: Did Asbestos Ban Lead to Loss of Life?' (Glanz and Revkin, 2001) The article quoted a range of opinions and also provided details on the extent of asbestos use during the construction of the WTC. One of those interviewed, Dr Arthur Langer, director of an environmental sciences laboratory at Brooklyn College, stated: `In retrospect, considering the recent events at the World Trade Center, I w'onder if the performance characteristics of the replacement material were as good'. By the end of 2001, Langer and a colleague had written a journal article that answered that question: `The ban of asbestos-containing spray fireproofing was probably a reasonable conclusion for the time, only if the substitute material performed as well as the material'which it replaced. However it did not.' (Langer and Morse, 2001). Having discounted die health risk, these authors presented evidence that, in their view, showed that sprayed asbestos was a more reliable product in teims of its density and cohesiveness than asbestos substitutes. This was published in a special issue of a journal, Indoor and Built Environment, in which it was further argued that the WTC disaster might foster a `more balanced approach' to the risk of asbestos in buildings (Lange, 2001). When that approach was not forthcoming, the debate was reinvigorated by Andrew Schlafly (2003) in an article in a medical journal. In trenchant language, Schlafly attacked what he perceived as the `flawed science' behind the decision to ban asbestos in the WTC, with Selikoff again as the culprit. `Litigafion-fed hysteria' was behind the collapse of the WTC, as it was behind the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters (which were also alleged to have been due to the lack of asbestos). Sympathisers with this view now felt able to proclaim the emergence of a `new policy' towards asbestos as a result of the WTC tragedy one that was based on `actual scientific facts, with less influence from social and political Fire and Risk 3 factors' (Lange, 2004). These views struck a chord elsewhere. English medical historian Peter Baitrip, in an article that described Selikoff as a medical fraud, suggested that the American `might be remembered as the man who caused the World Trade Center ... to be constructed without the benefit of asbestos to safeguard it from fire damage' (Bartrip, 2003). The issue of asbestos in the WTC was also raised by Rachel Maines (2005) in a study of the technological history o f asbestos as a fire-retardant, which praised the benefits of the mineral. This debate is important, because it relates not only to society's use of asbestos but also to the problem of providing a'dequate fire protection in skyscrapers, both for occupants and those involved in the original construction work. Until now no detailed historical account has been presented of the role o f asbestos in either the construction or the collapse of die WTC. However, new documents and official studies can be used to shed fresh light on this episode. Constructing the WTC The WTC was part of an urban renewal project that was launched by the Port Authority of New York in 1966. The ribbon-cutting took place in 1973. T.he project involved the erection o f a complex o f WTC buildings, but the chief ones were two 110-storey skyscrapers: WCT 1 (the North Tower) at 1,368 feet (417m) and WCT 2 (the South Tower) at 1,362 feet (415m). These buildings eclipsed the height of the Empire State Building and were the tallest buildings in New York until 9/11. The WTC was also briefly the tallest building complex in the world. The. skyscrapers marked an important point in the evolution of high-rise buildings and the development of their fireproofing (Wermeil, 2000). Since the nineteenth century, such structures had progressed from iron frame-designs (with heavy exterior walls), through steel beams (with columns, beams and concrete), to designs where a core and perimeter wall carried the load and allowed the removal of interior columns to provide more office space. The Towers were reportedly the first super-tall buildings built without any masonry - a feat accomplished by using a lightweight `hollow tube' design, with steel columns set only 22inches apart on the perimeter. This steel lattice was connected to floor supports radiating to a central core, which enclosed the elevators and stairs. The floor construction was prefabricated trussed steel, only 33-inches in depth, that spanned the full 60 feet to the core, and this also acted as a diaphragm to stiffen the outside vfall against buckling from high winds. The fire risk had received careful consideration, even to the extent of designing the WTC to withstand a jet strike (in those days the worse-case scenario involved a Boeing 707). Fire protection measures included sprinklers, fire detection apparatus, and fire-retardant materials. The building had to comply with contemporary fire regulations, which demanded a three-hour fire-resistance rating formulated and tested according to the 1970 New York City Building Code. From the viewpoint of later developments, a key feature of the fire protection was that the exterior faces of perimeter columns, besides the spandrels, and the floor-joists and framing were to be coated in sprayed asbestos fibre. Spraying asbestos required a mixture of asbestos and cement (delivered to the site in bags) and a bin-like machine on wheels (Tweedale, 1999). Once the mixture had been tipped into a hopper, a fan propelled the mixture through a large hose. A water spray was simultaneously fed to the head of the hose, where the spray operator stood directing the wet 4 Geoffrey Tweedale jet at the target surface. It proved an effective method of plastering floors, ceilings, girders, and ships bulkheads with a layer of asbestos and cement. The process had been devised in England in 1931 by asbestos multinational Turner & Newall (T&N). That company licensed it world-wide, but by the 1950s variants of the spray process were in use by other firms. The first high-rise use of sprayed mineral fibre was in 1958 in the 60-storey Chase Manhattan Bank. By 1970, over half of American multi-storey buildings had sprayed asbestos. Two contracts were involved in the spraying of the Towers. The main one was awarded to Alcoa and another was subcontracted to. Mario & DiBono Plastering Company (NIST, 2005). Both contractors used an asbestos coating named Cafco Blaze-Shield Type D. The spray mixture itself, which probably contained about 20-30 per cent asbestos fibre, was manufactured by US Mineral Products Corporation, a manufacturer of asbestos building materials. Another company appears in accounts of the construction of the WTC. That was W.R. Grace, which also manufactured buildings products and operated a vermiculite mine in Montana. Grace manufactured a product named Monokote, which contained asbestos, and was also used in the WTC. However, the extent of Grace's involvement in the WTC's construction is unclear both from the documents and later published accounts (Bowker, 2003; Peacock, 2003, Schneider and McCumber, 2004). It seems that the main WTC retardant was Blaze-Shield, with vermiculite plaster (presumably Grace's) only used on exterior wall panels (NIST, 2005, p. 74). Whatever the truth of the matter, it has been estimated that about 5,000 tons of asbestos were used m the WTC, with the metal and concrete-fill floors receiving l/2- mch of sprayed fibre and the trasses %-inch, The Dispute over Asbestos During the erection of WCT 1 (the North Tower) a dispute arose concerning the health hazards facing the construction workers. Spraying asbestos was inherently dusty, but when it was conducted within confined spaces (such as a skyscraper) providing adequate ventilation was difficult and wearing respirators continually was impossible. Ironically, spraying asbestos had been introduced in the UK in 1931 - the year when the British government had legislated for asbestosis (the chronic lung scarring caused by the kind of high dust levels experienced during spraying). Spraying, however, was exempted from regulation until the end of the 1960s - a move that reflected government pragmatism and the opposition of manufacturers such as T&N, who fought fiercely against the introduction of safety measures (Tweedale, 2001). The lack of a safety culture in spraying asbestos was apparent overseas, where T&N licensed the process. Photographs taken in the USA in 1940s and 1950s confirm the dangerous work conditions (Lilienfeld, 1991): The gross dust exposures .suffered by sprayers and other insulation workers were a major factor in the rising mortality from asbestos-related diseases (ARDs) in the 1960s and 1970s. By now the carcinogenicity of asbestos fibre in causing lung cancer and mesothelioma (a lethal and painful cancer of the lining of the lung or gut) was well recognised. Wonyingly, too, an environmental hazard existed. By tlje early 1960s, mesothelioma was associated with relatively short and transient inhalation of asbestos fibres by individuals who had never worked in the asbestos industry - brake repairmen, tradesmen, engineers, construction workers, architects, nurses, office workers and teachers. New Yorkers, in particular, were put Fire and Risk 5 on notice of the hazard. In 1964, Professor Irving Selikoff from his base at Mount Sinai Hospital had organised a major conference in New York City, which publicised the hazards of asbestos and highlighted the problem of mesothelioma (McCulloch and Tweedale, 2008). In 1968, Paul Brodeur, a staff writer for the New Yorker, wrote a series of articles entitled `The Magic Mineral' that sold so well it was later reprinted as a booklet (Brodeur, 1968). In a striking passage, Brodeur recounted how on Sixth Avenue he had watched sprayed asbestos escaping from building tarpaulins and blowing over the pavement like thistledown. In New York on any given day in 1970, there were six to eight buildings taller than thirty stories being sprayed. With asbestos in the headlines in New Work, it is not surprising that sprayed asbestos at the WTC began attracting attention. Inevitably, Selikoff - who became a world authority on ARDs - and his Mount Sinai team were at the centre of events. But they were not the only important participants. Johns-Manville, the leading asbestos manufacturer in the USA, monitored developments closely. In 1968, the company had helped launch an Insulation Industry Hygiene Research Program (IIHRP) that was based at Mount Sinai Hospital (Selikoff, 1970). Another key player was the Department of Air Resources, which had been established in New York by the newly-established Environmental Protection Administration (EPA). Inevitably, manufacturers' trade associations, trade unions, engineers, and architects became involved. Some of the documents from tire meetings between these individuals have survived and enable us to piece together the main events. `Sprayed asbestos continues to worry Dr Selikoff, noted a Johns-Manville director, after one meeting (Raines, 1968). Selikoff was disturbed not only by the occupational hazards, but also by the environmental risks caused by asbestos dust circulating through plenums (the false ceilings in buildings). Johns-Manville believed plenums would probably have to be eliminated and unless greater control could be achieved, `the building of the World Trade Center could, in effect, raise a real alarm and perhaps lead to an injunction to cease using [spray]'. By 1969, a task force to look at spray jobs had been formed under the aegis of the IIHRP. The initial intention was to improve^safety standards, which pleased Hill & Knowlton, the industry's public relations advisers. They wrote to Johns-Manville: `This is a good story and important because the sprayed asbestos is a potential source ... of bad publicity' (Thompson, 1969). Unfortunately, the bad publicity was to increase. In June 1969, Austin N. Heller, Commissioner of the Department of Air Resources, met Selikoff and reported his concern about community pollution from spray. Selikoff had no cheerful news to report: his colleague Dr Bill Nicholson had found that most of the sites he had visited were hazardous (IIHRP, 1969). In the following month, Johns-Manville and Hill & Knowlton met Selikoff to discuss problems at the WTC (Raines, 1969). Selikoff tried to emphasise the progress made by Herbert Levme (the president of Asbestospray Corporation and Chairman of the Sprayed Mineral Fiber Manufacturers' Association) in reducing dust, but said his team would soon take dust counts. Selikoff wanted dust control measures to be given a chance and never argued for a ban, but he was also uncompromising m his depiction of the risks. In November 1969, he lectured to the Contracting Plasterers' and Lathers' International Association (CPLIA) and highlighted the dangers of both spraying asbestos fibre and the unchecked `snow' that was drifting downtown from the WTC. According to an industiy observer: 6 Geoffrey Tweedale Selikoff stated they estimate 100 tons o f fiber will be airborne in New York from this job. He closed by stating the work practice .was the worst he could imagine and from his observation not one man spraying fiber today would be alive in 20 years. The officials of the international unions were there along with contractors and I know it landed like a bomb (Egan, 1969). , . Actually, Selikoff referred to young workers exposed to dust at fifty times the safe level, but his statement certainly had an impact. By the end ot 1969 events began to accelerate. Several meetings were held, either at Mount Sinai Hospital or at the Building Trades Employers' Association headquarters on Third Avenue, specifically to discuss the problem pf the WTC. Notes and minutes of these meetings, which ofhjn involved over 30 participants, have survived. They show that Selikoff provided epidemiological studies, dust counts, and physical examinations oi workers. But increasingly the driving force was the Department of Air Resources. At Mount Sinai Hospital in December 1969, Heller stated that a zero exposure limit was the objective for the protection of the public (Johns-Manville, 1969). Like Selikoff, Heller had been appalled at the dust created by spraying. When squabbles broke out with the spray contractors, Heller warned that he would hold public hearings, convene a two-day conference at Rockefeller University, and could take legal action against spraying. By now, Selikoff s team had visited and monitored sites in Europe and New York. Work safety was poor, unskilled (and often young) operatives were often employed, few respirators were used, and often the most dangerous types of fibre (blue and brown) were being sprayed. Mount Sinai's scientists began conducting dust counts. As yet no safety threshold had been set in America, but the British government had agreed on a dust threshold of 2 fibres per cubic centimetre ot air (2 fee) that was sftpposed to protect against asbestosis (though not cancer). Disturbingly, Selikoff s team- would show fibre counts for sprayers between 30 f/ce and 100 fee, with hopper fillers exposed m 5 f/cc to 22 fe e Moreover, counts had only been taken with an optical microscope, which was incapable of resolving the tiniest and thinnest fibres that were suspected of being the most carcinogenic (Reitze et al,, 1972). Aside from occupational exposure, environmental counts outside the construction site had also exceeded safe levels. At a meeting at Mount Smai on 8 December 1969, Selikoff recommended the formation of a committee of all the interested parties. This meeting, chaired by ;Sehkoff, took place on 9 and 10 January 1970. Ed Fenner, a Johns-Manville director (who was later to die of mesothelioma), watched a `real battle' between Selikoff and Herb Levine and his associates (Fenner, 1970). The spray companies argued that the problem was exaggerated, while Selikoff berated diem for their lack o f progress and poor work practices. Selikoff believed that the future occupational level wouid be set at 2-6 f/cc - though he wanted 2 f/cc - with the ambient, air criteria at 0.01 fee. Murray Shapiro, a consulting engineer, wanted sprayed asbestos banned. Architect Harold Rosen (representing Skidmore, Owings & Merrill) bluntly told die meeting: `Our firm will not design any more buildings to be sprayed! The article in the New Yorker alerted us!' (Fenner, 1970). At diis point, the Department of Air Resources took control. Heller had been succeeded by Robert N. Rickies, a thirty-four-year-old chemist and committed environmentalist. Under Rickies, a set of regulations was issued in April 1970 that aimed to control dust at the WTC (and the city's other twenty asbestos spray sites). Aside from measures to control dust on site (such as personal protection and vacuum cleaning), jobs would have to be sealed off with . Fire and Risk 7 plastic tarpaulins. Incredibly, these were the first known orders anywhere in the USA relating to the handling and application of asbestos materials on construction sites. When it began monitoring the regulations, the city authorities found that five sites were violating virtually every clause of the rules, while three others had to be shut down because of environmental emissions (Rickies, 1970). One of the summonses was issued on the WTC site to subcontractors DiBono. On 20 April 1970, all spray operations at the WTC site were suspended and spraying then stopped across the city. No `hysteria' was apparent. What was clear was that asbestos spraying had very few defenders. Monitoring the regulations'was taking more resources than die Department of Air Resources had available. For the manufacturers, too,, the regulations would prove expensive and cumbersome. It was obvious that asbestos dust could never be reduced to acceptable levels, aside from the environmental risk. Even the country's biggest asbestos producer quietly pulled the plug. Matthew Swetonic, Johns-Manville's public relations adviser, had attended one of the spray meetings. He recalled how he had looked out over Bryant Park at the construction site of die W.R. Grace building: 1 From a tarpaulined floor about 10 stories up, a virtual snow shower of sprayed asbestos was slowly drifting down to the street below ... I called everyone to the window. `That', I said, pointing to the street, `is why we have to take a walk on those people'. We quietly informed Dr Selikoff, the city of New York, and the EPA ... that w'hile we wouldn't attack the practice [on] health grounds, neither would we defend it (Swetonic, 1993, pp. 301 -2). The WTC reaction to Rickles's directive was immediate. In April 1970, when the Port Authority's WTC construction manager, Rino M. Monti, visited the New Jersey offices of US Mineral Products, they already had a substitute material - Cafco type D/CF - to show him. He was told that the new fireproofing material, based on ceramic fibre, was `without asbestos ... and equivalent to their previous Cafco type D with asbestos in all aspects' (Monti, 1970). That was soon confirmed by the Underwriters' Laboratory, which stated that substitute Cafco was `at least as good ... [and] ... may even be slightly better' as regards fire resistance (Bell, 1970). Alcoa decided to change the product anyway, because they did `not want to get involved with the bad public relations that would be associated with their continuing the two towers with an asbestos material' (Monti,. 1970). Mario & DiBono agreed to use the new product and also apply sealant to all areas already sprayed with asbestos. W.R. Grace also responded. After hearing Selikoff speak in 1969, a Grace executive had told its products division: `We must go all out to get asbestos out of Mono-Kote at once. If it means changing assignments or putting additional people on the job, I recommend it' (Egan, 1969). Within months Grace had formulated a new version of Monokote. . By September 1970, when T&N's representatives arrived in Ndw York in an attempt to rescue their technology and to belittle asbestos substitutes, the battle for the continuance of spraying had already been lost. Rickies told them bluntly that `the banning of spray was still [the Department's] objective ... because the spray contractors in New York were irresponsible and could not even be trusted to apply the emergency controls ... ' (Howe and Holmes, 1970). Even Levine agreed that the spray contractors were negligent. By mid-1971, Selikoff s team was ready to publish their findings. They predicted a `most unhappy fate' for sprayers and also highlighted the risk for pipe fitters, welders, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, whose deaths would not be evident until 1980s and 1990s. They believed that such Geoffrey Tweedale occupational hazards were `intolerable' (Reitze et al, 1972). By the time that paper went to press, on 25 February 1972 New York City had banned all asbestos spraying in the city. Within a year that ban was nationwide. At the WTC, asbestos spraying had reached the 38'" floor, but henceforth the Cafco asbestos-substitute material would be used for the bulk o f the fireproofing. The WTC opened the following year. WTCUnder Fire Fire-proofing m a skyscraper is not static: it can be modified and tested by events. The first test o f the WTC's fire-retardants and the escape procedures for its staff occurred in 1975. A fire started on the eleventh floor of the North Tower and burned for three hours, spreading flames along cable shafts and sending smoke, to several floors above. This fire first raised the issue of the effectiveness of the fire-protection in the WTC. New York Fire Commissioner John T. O'Hagan, in particular, voiced concerns - not about asbestos - but about sprayed fireretardants generally. He argued that more traditional materials, such as concrete, offered a greater margin of safety than sprayed-on materials (whether asbestos or mineral fibre), which could deteriorate and fall off (O'Hagan, 1977). These criticisms of sprayed fibre were true. Much depended on the competence of the sprayers, the preparation of target surfaces, and inspection procedures. Sprayed asbestos was notorious for being carelessly applied by semi skilled sprayers and then flaking away and creating dust. For example, in August 1970 - only a few months after spraying ceased in New York - a fire broke out in One New York Plaza, a skyscraper a few blocks south of the WTC that was protected by sprayed asbestos. The fire was soon extinguished, but there were two fatalities. A subsequent investigation found that much of the insulation on the key floors had fallen off soon after its application or had been disturbed by later construction work (Abrams, 1979), In the Twin Towers themselves, it had been known since the 1980s that some of the buildings either lacked a fireproof coating or that coating had been sprayed very thinly. Repairs, buildings swaying m the wind, and the unpact of elevator cables on beams also dislodged the coatings (Glanz and Moss, 2001). This partly explains why a repair and modification program was underway almost as soon as the WTC was completed. In the aftermath of the fire in 1975, more fire-resistant material was added where cabling and plumbing penetrated floors and walls. Asbestos fibre that was already in place was either sealed or `abated' (in other words, removed). Later the Port Authority would begin legal action against its insurers in an attempt (which was unsuccessful) to recoup the removal costs. Nevertheless, in 1981 the Asbestos Corporation m Canada used the WTC in a striking advertisement that proclaimed the life-saving properties of its product. The slogan was `When Life Depends On It You Use Asbestos'. The advertisement highlighted that it took only two hours to evacuate the building after the alarm went off. It was an ironic advertisement because most of the floors did not contain asbestos. On the other hand, it should be remembered that during the 1980s WTC 7 was still being built (and was not opened until 1987). W.R. Grace had won the contract for this building and used their Monokote 5 sprayed insulation. This vermiculite-based product was to have a controversial history, because (as Grace knew) it contained small percentages of a dangerous type of asbestos known as tremolite (Peacock, 2003; Schneider and McCumber, 2004). Fire and Risk 9 A more severe test of the WTC's resilience came in 1993, when terrorists first attempted to blow it up. A truck bomb was detonated in the underground garage at the base of the North Tower, killing six people. Power was lost in the Tower and smoke rose through it, but the building was soon evacuated. The Tower was repaired, cleaned, and reopened in less than a month. However, further modifications to the WTC's fireproofing followed. The Port Authority decided in the mid-1990s to increase the layer of Cafco fire-retardant on the trusses from %-inch to 154-inch. Thirty-one stories had been upgraded when the Boeing 767s, heavily laden with fuel, hit the Towers on the morning of 9/11. After the impact, WCT 2 collapsed in 59 minutes and WCT 1 in 102 minutes. The death toll, including occupants, jet passengers, and New York safety personnel, was over 3,000. However, 25,000 escaped. Later that day, in an event that received scant publicity, the fire-damaged WTC 7 also collapsed. Conclusion The debate over asbestos in the WTC was only one strand among many that emerged as commentators began to grapple with the events of 9/11 (Eagar and Musso, 2001; Sellers, 2003). Inevitably, official reports followed. In May 2002, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) completed a'Building Performance Study for the World Trade Center and nearby buildings (FEMA,- 2002). It concluded that the design of the WTC was sound and attributed the collapses wholly to extraordinary factors beyond the control of the builders. While it called for further study, it suggested that weakening of the floor joists led to the floors falling upon each other in a `pancake' collapse. In August 2002, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced a multi-year investigation into the collapse of the Towers, besides WTC 7. The NIST investigation was to look at structural fire protection, life safety, and engineering practice. It included extensive investigations, ranging from heat tests on the structural steel, computer simulation, and modelling of smoke and fire movement, besides interviews with survivors. The NIST Final Report (2005) also vindicated the design of the WTC, noting that the damage caused by the jets was unprecedented. But it emphasised that their impact caused fireproofing to be detached from the structural steel, making the columns more vulnerable to the heat from the resulting fires (heat that drastically weakened the steel). That factor, combined with so much immediate physical destruction of external and core columns, caused the sagging floors to pull the outer walls of the buildings inwards until they buckled. At WTC 7, which was a more typical high building and had not been hit by jets or doused in kerosene, the investigation concluded that the collapse was due to the prolonged fire (triggered by WCT 1) and the design of the building. Although fire protection receives close attention in these reports and in their voluminous drafts and appendices, it is striking that the word `asbestos' hardly ever occurs. For example, in the NIST (2005) report the word `asbestQs' is mentioned in passing on only five pages in a report o f nearly 300 pages. NIST's WTC 7 (2008) report, though it recommended enhancement of fire protection systems, did not single out the sprayed Monokote for criticism and, again, never mentioned asbestos. The mineral itself was simply not regarded as an issue. However, sprayed-on fireproofing of whatever type was an issue. The fact that these reports fail to emphasise asbestos highlights a very important point. As a fire-retardant in buildings, 10 Geoffrey Tweedale asbestos is not unique. Its legendary fire-resistant properties can be duplicated by other mineral fibres - products, moreover, that do not damage the health of their applicators. The histoiy o f the WTC shows how easily manufacturers could devise - even before a ban was introduced - alternatives that not only replaced asbestos, but also delivered better fire ratings. Although one might point to WTC spray fire-retardants as being far from perfect, it is clear that the lack o f asbestos made little difference to the fate o f the Towers. To be sure, one might regard the government accounts as no more than a sanitised view of events. But none of the protagonists of the idea that asbestos contributed to the disaster have provided convincing scientific analysis or contemporary documents. The Milloy and Schlafly contributions are full of exaggerations and misleading statements. Their favourite quote is by Herbert Levine who, as this article has shown, was an ardent proponent of a process that proved lethal to his workforce. The apparent source of this quote is a reported conversation between Levine and Professor Richard Wilson at Harvard University. The latter is the main expert cited by Milloy to support his case, but Wilson is a risk analyst who does not publish in the field of asbestos. Langer and Morse (2001), in their more substantial contribution, have argued that sprayed asbestos is a superior product and would have better protected the WTC. But as we have seen, other evidence shows that sprayed asbestos was far from satisfactory. Maines, too, has described asbestos as a `perfect material' and has implied that serious fires in American buildings have increased as asbestos use has declined (Maines, 2005, p.134). However, tire statistics do not support this conclusion US fire fatalities have steadily declined and, in particular, deaths from fires in high-rise American office buildings had become exceptional by the 1990s (in many years no one died in this way); and until WTC 7, no high-rise office structure had ever collapsed through fire (National Fire Protection Association, 2008). The above accounts have usually linked what is essentially a construction problem with contemporary litigation issues and ad hominem attacks on critics of asbestos, such as Selikoff. The coincidence of 9/11 with the crescendo of asbestos litigation in the USA is surely relevant. The credentials of most of those who have praised asbestos have left them open to the charge of writing from an ideological rather than scientific perspective. Steven Milloy, the apparent originator of this WTC debate, is presented by Fox News as an independent journalist. However, he is also a consultant for tobacco companies Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds and oil giant Exxon Mobil. Milloy's main claim to fame is as a self appointed critic of `junk science' and opponent of the idea of global warming. From the 1990s until the end of 2005, he was an adjunct scholar at the `libertarian' Cato Institute, which has a track record of hostility to asbestos litigation. Richard Wilson also has links with the Cato Institute and appeared at a US Seftate hearing in 2007 to state his opposition to the banning of asbestos. Schlafly is a conservative lawyer and founder of Consermpedia, which has been described as the US religious right's version of Wikipedia. The publication m which his article appeared, the Journal o f American Physicians and Surgeons, is not regarded as a valid peer-reviewed journal. Langer, perhaps the only expert of substance on asbestos to have become involved in this debate (he once worked at Mount Sinai with Selikoff), has received (and has declared) asbestos industry funding. Most of -Peter Bartrip's work has been commissioned by defendant asbestos attorneys; and both he and Rachel Maines have testified in litigation at the request of asbestos companies. Some of the key articles on this issue have appeared in Indoor and Built Environment, a journal that has claimed the moral high ground in the asbestos debate. However, recently- Fire and Risk 11 released,documents suggest that the launch of this journal was orchestrated by the tobacco industry as a way of presenting research that questioned the health risks of environmental tobacco smoke (Michaels, 2008, p. 53). Currently, the journal's content reflects the outlook of a small coterie of mineralogists, toxicologists and industry consultants, who support the continued use of asbestos. Its editor, John Hoskins, has consistently supported the Canadian government and its asbestos industry in their quest to extend asbestos manufacture in the developing world. A literature that supported the idea that the WTC collapsed because it had been denuded of asbestos would obviously be extremely useful in rehabilitating asbestos and furthering these aims. However, if this debate was an attempt to `manufacture doubt', then it has been unsuccessful. No convincing evidence has been presented that substitutes did not perform as well as asbestos. The WTC disaster has made no difference to the types of fire-retardants used in current buildings (though it may influenee building design and building codes). Designers of high-rise buildings are continuing to rely on man-made mineral fibres and no moves are afoot to relaunch asbestos fire insulation. The fire-retardant that has been used in the recently rebuilt WTC 7 is none other than the latest version of Grace's Monokote. It contains no asbestos. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr David Higgins at the University of York for providing copies of some of the more obscure publications. References Abrams, M.S. 1979. Behavior of Inorganic Materials in Fire. In H. Smith, Edwin Earle Smith, T. Z. Harmathy (eds), Design o f Buildings fo r Fire Safety: A Symposium. Boston, MA, American Society for Testing and Materials International: 14-75. Bartrip, P. J. 2001. Irving John Selikoff and the Strange Case of. the Missing Medical Degrees. 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