Document bOEVNpy4vN6Vz2jGJLmQGwLMO

cc~\ ^ate5mr Jitecribfjfif-- W JQ&rJiAal) REVIEW & OUTLOOK Puncturing a Panic PLAINTIFF | EXHIBIT The long-running scare over as that asbestos in buildings is a signifi * AL-1522 bestos is turning out to be the "War of cant cancer threat. It simply isn't. the Worlds" of environmental panics. For reasons of its own. the Envi As with Orson Welles's famous scary ronmental Protection Agency hasn't radio broadcast, the asbestos panic made much effort to put the asbestos has been whipped up by endless eve issue into proper scientific perspec ning news reports about how the na tive, even in the wake of the Harvard tion's schools were cancer traps. A report. Charles Elkins, an EPA group of specialists on asbestos and spokesman, says that the findings of disease gathered at Harvard recently the Harvard report is a position and their report concluded what most "we've taken for a good number of serious scientists already knew: years." This surely is news to a lot of "Using conservative (pessimistic > as private and public schools that have sumptions, mesothelioma and lung- torn apart their budgets to satisfy the i cancer risk projections from expo asbestos mandates. sures to indoor asbestos for school-age Indeed, the politicians' phobia over children and the general population asbestos continues. New York City, were generally agreed by all the sym for instance, is considering a removal posium participants to be quite law. The costs would be prohibitive. small." According to a spokesman for the The cost however, has been quite World Trade Center, removal costs large. According to Kate Herber, leg would be $300 million to $350 million islative counsel for the National for just the trade center. School Board Association, asbestos-re The one group that might conceiva moval costs could for elementary and bly be at some risk from asbestos is secondary schools be as high as $6 bil workers, such as plumbers or electri lion. This figure is only the removal cians, who might spend time around costs for 671 of the more than 15,000 asbestos that's being dislodged. But public-school districts around the the Occupational Safety and Health country who answered a survey. Administration imposes regulations The cost of compliance of just the surveyed schools from fiscal 1986 to fiscal 1990 will approach $464 million. "A lot of that money that used to go to educational programs is now going to comply with SPA regulations," says Ms. Herber. According to the Harvard re port the average levels of airborne asbestos in buildings where the as-bestos is intact are "extremely low," and it suggests that the emphasis should be on maintenance of asbestos, since removal, if improperly done, usually is more dangerous than just leaving it alone. The report goes on to say that cigarette smoke or radon pose a much greater risk than inplace asbestos. Interestingly, the re port shares the school boards' concern that what the symposium called "fi ber phobia" may be diverting money from other pressing needs. One that springs to mind is the schools' war on drugs. that, though stringent, concede the relative harmlessness of casual expo sure to most asbestos. In 1986. OSHA issued revised stan dards that said that "countless main tenance operations Involving the han dling of asbestos-containing materials are conducted ... and these opera tions. which are small in scale and of short duration, are vastly dissimiUar in degree of hazard to many other 1 asbestos-related construction opera tions. such as asbestos-abatement projects." In other words, if anyone's in danger, it Is people around projects that are tearing out asbestos. Despite all this. Rep. Florio now wants to extend his law to all private and public buildings and has intro- ] duced an amendment to the 1986 act. \ Some of his colleagues, however, have received an earful from their local school boards, and Congress has hired a consultant to do a two- to three-year study of the potential effects of the bill. After these accomplishments, If there is an architect of this ex Mr. Florio is pursuing the current pensive public-policy fiasco It is Dem logic of upward mobility in American ocratic Congressman Jim Florio of politics; he's running for the gover New Jersey. Mr. Florio was the prin norship of New Jersey. cipal sponsor of the Asbestos Hazard The asbestos story is an archetype Emergency Response Act of 1986, of how in our time negligible health which mandates that schools Inspect hazards are blown up Into plague their buildings for asbestos and take sized problems. Scientists are starting appropriate action. The principal ef to use a phrase to describe the politi fect of the Florio bill, of course, has cians' response: too much money been to publicize its Sawed premise- chasing too little risk. ALCOAOO00007899