James Donald wrote...
Not this cypherpunk -- the evils of asbestos are ninety percent hot air.
That's about the right percentage.
In reality, if someone is exposed to enough asbestos to be a problem, he is painfully aware of it. Only a minuscule minority among those now receiving stupendous awards were exposed to that level of asbestos.
Not really. This party line is equally hot air. Basically, there are two main modes of asbestos related disease: asbestosis and melothemeoma (I probably spelled that last one wrong.) The Manville miners inhaled huge quantities of Asbestos and almost all of them died of asbestosis. This can occur when exposed to any type of asbestos in large quantities. Another form of asbestos-related death is a whole different story. Melothemeoma is due to when the non-serpentine types of asbestos pierce the lung wall and push stray genetic refuse into cell nuclei, starting a really bad lung cancer. The form of asbestos most closely associated with this is crocidilyte, which is needle-like and a beautiful dark blue in color. That form of asbestos can cause cancer even in very low exposures. Forunately, its exceedingly rare. Back in the late 80s I only saw perhaps half a dozen samples of it in the course of viewing many thousands of asbestos. As for floor tiles using asbestos, I would never bother removing them...the asbestos in them probably mitigates far more fire-related danger than it causes exposure-related risk. As for hanging clumps of Asbestos down in your boiler room, close the door and don't let the kids play down there. Don't abate, as you'll probably create more exposure than if you left it alone. Summary: your odds of dying due to low levels of asbestos exposure are exceedingly low, but decidedly nonzero. -TD
--digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG 8gm9gCyQYFsIMdu+WBfQDsch65rBj3PGxaGDX58F 4/6al9vqF/sHVMF7iikxBjrsqugs4W7kRkOUPPUFA
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