What is asbestos?

Fake snow made from asbestos.

by Glenn Daigon

Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral fiber classified into two groups, Serpentine and Amphibole.  Chrysotile asbestos is the most common of the Serpentine group to be used commercially. (Source: www.asbestos-mesothelioma.com/asbestos-fibers.html).
The less common Amphibole group includes Amosite, Crocidolite, Tremolite, Actinolite, and Anthophyllite. (Source: www.asbestos-mesothelioma.com/asbestos-fibers.html).

History

The word “asbestos” comes from the Greek word meaning “inextinguishable.”  The first asbestos mine was located in Greece on the island of Ewola and was established around the first century A.D.  Historians note that during the time of the Holy Roman Empire in the Middle Ages, engineers used asbestos in building materials, due to its fire-resistant properties. (Source: www.maacenter.org/asbestos/history/php).

The Industrial Revolution represented a huge boom for the asbestos industry.  Factories opened up everywhere and their owners devised new uses for the miracle mineral on a regular basis.  Commercial asbestos mines sprung up in the late 1800s.  The railroad industry was among the first to make extensive use of asbestos and asbestos-containing products.  As the railroad industry grew, so did the demand for asbestos products.  Railroad engineers began to use asbestos materials to line refrigeration units, boxcars, and cabooses, and the material was found to be especially useful as insulation for pipes, boilers, and fireboxes in that era’s steam locomotives (Source: www.maacenter.org/asbestos/history/php).

The shipyard industry also made extensive use of asbestos for insulating boilers, hot water pipes, and incinerators.  The auto industry also used asbestos widely, namely in brake and shoe pads as well as clutch plates.  Asbestos was also used in the brakes in skyscraper elevators (Source: www.maacenter.org/asbestos/history/php).

But the use of asbestos in those latter two mentioned industries paled in comparison to its use by the building industry.  Asbestos was soon to be found everywhere in homes and commercial buildings in an effort to make them fire-proof.  It was used in wall insulation, for floor and ceiling tiles, in exterior siding, and in roofing tar and shingles.  Because of asbestos fabric’s strength and resistance to heat, it was considered safer than standard fabric. Schools and theaters boasted of using asbestos curtains.  When asbestos use was at its greatest in the mid-twentieth century, an estimated 3,000 products made use of its unique properties.  You could find asbestos in hair dryers, irons and ironing board covers, toasters, coffee pots, and electric blankets (Source: www.maacenter.org/asbestos/history/php).

Health Issues

Asbestos diseases have been known and documented for over 100 years.  During an autopsy in 1900, Dr. H. Montague Murray, a physician in London’s Charring Cross Hospital, discovered asbestos fibers in the lungs of a 33-year-old man who had worked 14 years in an asbestos textile factory and died of severe pulmonary fibrosis, which the doctor linked to his occupation. ¹

But it was not until 1924 that the first clear case of death due to asbestosis was published in the British Medical Journal. Dr. W.E. Cooke, an English physician who gave the disease its name, reported the results of an autopsy on a 33-year-old woman who had worked in an asbestos textile factory for 13 years². This is the first diagnosed case of asbestosis. The publication led doctors and scientists to examine hundreds of asbestos textile workers. They found that a quarter of the workers developed pulmonary fibrosis, the condition which Cooke dubbed asbestosis.³

In the United States, in 1918, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics published a report by an insurance statistician noting the unusually early deaths of asbestos workers and revealing that it had become common practice for insurers to deny coverage for workers because of the “assumed health-injurious conditions” in the asbestos industry.⁴   In 1927, the first workmen’s compensation disability claim for asbestos was upheld by the Massachusetts Industrial Board.⁵

In 1932, the U.S. Bureau of Mines sent a letter to asbestos manufacturer Eagle-Picher stating, “It is now known that asbestos dust is one of the most dangerous dusts to which man is exposed.” ⁶

The Industry Suppresses the Evidence.  Asbestos industry companies did not sit idly by as the medical evidence against their product built.  Here are just a few examples of how the industry tried to suppress it:

_    1936—-A group of asbestos companies agrees to sponsor research on the health effects of asbestos dust, but requires that the companies maintain complete control over the disclosure of the results.⁷

_    1942 or 1943—-The president of Johns Manville says that the managers of another asbestos company were “a bunch of fools for notifying employees who had asbestosis.”  When one of the managers asked, “Do you mean to tell me you would let them work until they dropped dead?”  The response was reported to have been, “Yes.  We save a lot of money that way.” ⁸

_    1951—Asbestos companies remove all references to cancer before allowing publication of research they sponsor.

_    1972—An internal W.R. Grace memo states:

“The point I am trying to get across is that our present policy is to tell no one anything, no visitors, or discussion of our operations period”  [with regard to asbestos risks].

Regulation

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) first started regulating exposure to asbestos in the workplace in 1971. Over the years, OSHA tightened this standard several times to further restrict exposure of workers to asbestos fibers. The last time the standard was tightened was in August of 1994, cutting permissive exposure in half for nearly four million workers (Source: www.mesothelioma-mesothelioma.org/regulation.htm).

Since asbestos exposure was not merely limited to the workplace, but the general public as well, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also began to regulate exposure.  In 1973, the EPA announced a regulation banning spray-on asbestos insulation as a pollution hazard. In 1979, the EPA announced its intention to issue a rule that would ban all uses of asbestos.  Those rules did not go into effect until 1989 when the EPA announced its intention to issue a rule banning asbestos in most of its major uses. In 1991, however, the asbestos companies won a lawsuit against the EPA’s 1989 ban, and the regulation was blocked.

The Senate considered a complete ban on asbestos in 2007, but heavy pressure from the industry diluted the bill to exempt products containing less than one percent asbestos.  This bill, sponsored by Senator Murray of Washington State, passed the Senate in 2007.   But public interest groups argued that all levels of exposure to asbestos, even products containing less than one percent asbestos, were a grave health risk.  These groups are continuing to press Congress for a complete ban on asbestos, with no exemptions or limits.