Document KR86dvVq5aDKEngvDoVv4o8Vx

Jts simpjj eh tile early Probably a,e tjog world. | department 3 hired me, loined J-m his under lie school company's n J-M plant '.ones on a e company jets it was nai knowlnead of ail .azine. Life who was Raines's <m and he him and npany. He negations article or :enlion to th a new my new ^covered "ih, genvpes uf d a few. Death of the Asbestos Industry now closed, in the United States: and the two so-called amphibole varieties, crocidoiite and amosite. which are mostly' found in the southern part of Africa. China and the former Soviet Union also contain sizable deposits of asbestos, but they play little part In our tale. Some chrysotile asbestos will be found wherever there are outcroppings of a form of rock called serpentine, but these are not com mercially useable. These outcroppings can be found in almost every state in the L.S. Practically the entire northern half of California rests on a bed of what is referred to as 'crud grade' asbestos ore. While totally unusable, it is the main <reason why California cities such as San Francisco and Sacramento have the highest levels of asbestos in their drinking water of essentially anyplace in the world. Rain put it there by washing it out of the ground and into the drinking water. Wind and erosion also release small but detectable quantities of asbestos into the air It has even been found in ice samples dating back thousands of years. It is everywhere. What made asbestos so valuable was its ability to be separated into long silky fibers that could be woven or wound into a wide variety of products: and it is practically fireproof. The word asbestos.' in fact, comes from the ancient Greek and means 'unquenchable.' not because it wouldn't burn but because when used as wicks for oil lamps, it wouldn't go out or burn down. To this day I keep a chuck of asbestos ore on my desk. To illustrate its attributes I pull a few fibers and hold them over a cigarette lighter. Far thinner than a human hair, the fibers will glow bright red in the flame, but not burn or be consumed. It is the fineness and near indestructibility of the fibers that made asbestos so valuable, and. as it turned out. so lethal. The first indications that there might be something amiss with the "magic min eral" arose in the years prior to the First World War in Great Britain, in me late 1940s, reports, once again from England, began appearing in the medical litera ture linking asbestos exposure to an elevated risk of lung cancer among heavily exposed workers, primarily in the British asbestos textile industry, where condi tions were recognized to be particularly dusty. While efforts were undertaken to reduce exposures, it was not known how much ashestos was "too much." Health Problems? In the United Slates and Canada, the industry was sufficiently alarmed by the reports crossing the Atlantic from England that It commissioned a study of lung cancer among the Quebec asbestos miners, it was assumed -- incorrectly, as it late- turned out -- that asbestos miners would have the highest exposure of any eicuf of ri-ocstos workers, including the textile workers, and that if a problem were io i>r found, it would be found in the Quebec mines. The study, which was