Mechanics and Brake Shoes

A MECHANIC'S EPITAPH: 'SOMEONE HAS GOT TO WARN THESE KIDS'

Friday, November 17, 2000
By ANDREW SCHNEIDER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/uncivilaction/nose17.shtml

"These kids working at gas stations have got to understand that there's still asbestos in brakes. They can't see it, feel it, smell it or taste it, but it's going to kill them just like it's killing me."

Twelve days after making this statement, Patrick Dennis Kine died. Asbestos, probably from the 5,000-plus brake jobs he'd done during 20 years as a mechanic, killed him.

The 65-year-old Olympia resident was a clown. A real one. Red nose and all.

He had a sense of humor that permeated everything he did. Even the agonizing death he was fighting from mesothelioma -- a rare form of asbestos-caused cancer that destroys cells that line the chest or abdominal cavity.

"With all this asbestos in me, I'm probably fireproof," Kine joked. "I can eat all the hot chilies there are."

After two decades of running his own auto repair shop, he spent the next 26 years teaching others how to do it. He taught mechanics to hundreds of youths in Spokane's West Valley School District, at Spokane Community College and at the Shelton High School near Olympia. At one point, he was president of the local Washington Education Association.

It was a tightness in his chest, a hard time getting a full gulp of air, that brought him to the doctor in March of 1998.

"First I thought I had a bad cold, or the flu, but I couldn't shake it," Kine recalled.

Some X-rays showed how wrong he was.

"The next morning I was flat on my back in a hospital and they were draining this yellow gunk out of my right lung. Lots of it," he said.

Ultrasounds and CT scans followed immediately.

"I had this huge mass between my right lung and my ribs."

A biopsy to get a sample of the mass became major surgery.

"They started up front," Kine said, pointing to his chest, "and wound up going all they way around to the back and up over the shoulder blade. They were trying to get around the mass, but it was everywhere. It had grown through and all around my ribs."

He had mesothelioma.

"I know what it was. It was in the handouts I gave to my students. It was what I warned them about; it was the ultimate harm that asbestos can do to you if you're sloppy working with brakes and clutches," he said. "And now I'm dying from it."

The survival rate for mesothelioma is usually eight to 12 months. Kine made it almost two years.

He fought hard. Chemotherapy, radiation treatments, dozens of them. They slowed the growth of the cancer, but didn't stop it.

"I'm not afraid of dying, but I'm terrified of leaving Donna alone," Kine said, fighting back the tears as he thought of his wife of 42 years.

"I don't want to be a burden but I really wanted to watch them live their lives," he said, speaking of his daughter, two sons and four grandchildren.

Always the clown, he quickly changed the subject.

"The worst thing about the chemotherapy is that it changes the way things that you loved all your life taste," Kine said.

"My favorite was shortbread animal crackers, but now they taste terrible. Coffee, which I used to almost inhale, tastes ghastly. Life is just funny."

He thought back to when he first learned that asbestos in brakes can kill.

"I guess it was in '83 or '84," he recalled. "We got these fliers from the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) or OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) or some government agency, telling how dangerous asbestos was and how much was contaminating the average guy doing a brake job.

"It just didn't make sense. I'd been messing with asbestos for years and so had every other mechanic I knew. No one ever told us it could kill you."

While he was still debating how much attention to pay to the federal warnings, the National Automotive Education Association sent him another batch of pamphlets for his students.

"They were serious. This asbestos was bad stuff. I started think back to all the old mechanics I knew, but I didn't know a lot of old mechanics. Most of them had died of breathing problems or lung cancer and some of them never smoked," he said.

Quickly, he added asbestos dangers to his curriculum.

He remembers telling his students that medical researchers said an exposure lasting only one or two months can result in mesothelioma developing 30 or 40 years later.

"I don't think it sunk in," he said. "These kids were convinced they'd never die, especially not from something they couldn't see. But I kept hammering at them."

He became an auto-repair evangelist, spreading the word of the dangers of the invisible fibers every time he stopped at a gas station.

"God, they were bullheaded. I remember when I was young. I thought nothing could harm me."

Long before he was diagnosed, he wondered about his own exposure.

During the 20 years he ran his own repair shop in Spokane -- Grand Prix Motors -- he was doing four or five major brake jobs a week.

"There was asbestos dust all over the place," he said. "We'd sand the brakes, file them, drill them, grind them and we and everything around us would be covered in that black grit.

"I'd blow my nose and it would be black. I'd wash my hair and the tub would be black."

He said it wasn't just the brakes that had asbestos.

"It was all over the vehicle," he said. "It was in the clutches, the exhaust and intake manifold, the cylinder heads, lots of gaskets. It was everywhere," Kine said.

He was angry that the manufacturers of the cars and the replacement brakes and clutches never warned mechanics of the dangers.

"Not a damn word. Not one. Never," he recalled. "Even in the early '90s the parts salesmen were saying it was much ado about nothing.

"How could they possibly keep something so deadly a secret?"

He didn't understand, he said, why the government went silent.

"I was just amazed. The government was so serious about getting the word out about the dangers from asbestos in the '80s. Then it just stopped, silence, like someone turned off the faucet," he said.

Like almost everyone else, Kine believed that the government had banned asbestos, that new cars no longer used it and replacement parts were now asbestos-free.

"I'd go these gas stations and see the kids covered in dust. Some of the brake boxes still said asbestos on them. Most didn't, but I could tell it was full of those fibers," he said.

"The kids would just shrug. They probably thought I was an old fool."

But Kine didn't quit trying.

"It became easier to hammer my point home after the surgery," he said. "I'd lift my shirt and show them the scars and then they'd pay attention."

Kine was most proud when his students came back to show off their wives and kids.

"I couldn't help wondering, 'Do they have it? Will they get it? Do they remember what I warned them about?'

"My students were not the ones that were going to MIT, but they were going to be damn good mechanics. But would the job kill them?"

As the tumor grew, Kine became weaker, but he kept fighting it off. He had one more thing he wanted to do. In June, the National Model Railroad Association and Circus Model Builders were holding their national convention together in Boise.

Trains and circuses, two of Kine's loves. For years, as Red Nose the Clown, he entertained hundreds of children.

"These go together because in the old days all the circuses traveled by railroad," he said. His collection of model trains was extensive and he wanted to show them off one more time.

Kine went to Boise, clown costume and all, wheeling his oxygen bottle behind him.

"I had to go and I did. It was hard, but it was worth it," he said.

The disease was taking its toll.

"You can't walk anywhere. You've got to plod and I've never been a plodder," Kine said. "My right lung doesn't do anything at all and I've got less than 30 percent function in my left lung. And it's never going to get any better. I'm going to be treading water the rest of my life."

On Aug. 13, he went into the hospital for the last time. He was suffocating from the fluids in his lungs. The cancerous mass had grown so large it was blocking his intestines.

That night he talked about the importance of getting the word out that asbestos was still out there.

"I hear the burst of an air hose and I cringe," Kine said. "Even with my eyes closed I can see the clouds of dust and now, when it's too late, I can almost see the invisible fibers of asbestos. I know it's in there.

"I wish I could do more, but I'm going to die here. EPA, OSHA, someone has got to warn these kids that they're working with death. If the government doesn't do anything, no one will."

Kine died on Aug. 25.

In his will he wrote that he wanted neither funeral nor memorial service.

"I feel they work a hardship on those left behind. I want my relatives to have a good old-fashioned wake instead . . . buy a keg or two, prepare food, celebrate my life with a big party. Cab fare will be provided as needed."

Parties were held in Spokane and Olympia.

< Return to Top >

MOST MECHANICS DON'T KNOW -- OR DON'T CARE -- ABOUT ASBESTOS

Friday, November 17, 2000
By CAROL SMITH and ANDREW SCHNEIDER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/uncivilaction/mech17.shtml

The government tried for years to warn mechanics of the hazards of asbestos in brakes. But the message didn't get through to the thousands of grease-streaked neighborhood shops that do brake jobs every day.

Most mechanics today either don't know, or don't care, about asbestos.

During the past four months, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer observed scores of mechanics changing brakes in more than 70 gas stations and auto-repair shops. Some national brake-repair chains and high-end car dealers have pristine work bays, shiny tiled walls, sterile-looking tool bins and asbestos-capturing filter systems. However, most procedures on sick cars get done in smaller garages, under less than operating-room conditions.

The mechanics doing the work in these independent shops are largely using obsolete or inadequate techniques, putting themselves at risk. The well-documented danger of asbestos is rarely considered.

Asbestos is a killer. It causes asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma -- all incurable. Mesothelioma snuffs out life in months. Asbestosis destroys the lungs' ability to function. Death by slow, agonizing suffocation takes years.

Yet nine out of 10 of the mechanics and supervisors interviewed thought that there was no longer asbestos in brakes or clutches. Health researchers and industrial hygienists have developed many techniques to reduce exposure to asbestos as auto mechanics do their jobs. These protective measures boil down to a simple philosophy: Keep asbestos fibers out of the air, and if that can't be done, at least keep mechanics from breathing it.

All of the guidance produced by government and industry denounces the old "dry" method used for decades.

Compressed air hoses were commonly used to blow the dust from the brake mechanism. Using this method to clean drum brakes could "release up to 16 million asbestos fibers in the cubic meter of air around a mechanic's face," the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) warned.

Even hitting the brake drum with a hammer to loosen it can generate 1 million fibers, the agency said.

Wiping with a dry brush or dry rag can launch a deadly cloud of fibers.

The Coordinating Committee for Automotive Repair (CCAR), an education program for mechanics sponsored by 200 manufacturers, colleges, health groups and government agencies, warns that even the new "wet" techniques "may actually contribute to the problem."

Wiping with a wet rag or brush does little to prevent the scattering of asbestos.

"When the rag dries or is shaken, asbestos is spread around the garage," says CCAR's Web site.

Liquid squirt bottles or aerosol cans of solvent "scatter much of the asbestos and when it dries, it is still all over the surrounding work surfaces," the group warns.

CCAR, EPA and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OHSA) all recommend that mechanics wear respirators, carefully fitted and with asbestos-trapping filters. They caution against using traditional vacuum cleaners or shop-vacs because, unless equipped with a special "HEPA" or high efficiency particulate air filter, the fibers will not only not be captured, but in fact, be blown out and spread over a much wider area.

The recommendations also suggest that mechanics wash well and change clothes before going home. Dirty work clothes should be laundered at special facilities equipped to handle clothes contaminated with asbestos, the group says.

It is a safe bet that only a small percentage of mechanics follow all of these recommendations.

"You're dealing with the phenomenon of, 'If mechanics can't see it and they can't smell it, it doesn't exist and they don't deal with it,"' said Sherman Titens, CCAR president.

Titens is correct. The mechanics interviewed and observed by the P-I appeared almost cavalier in their disregard for their own safety.

Three were still using air hoses to blast the dust away.

When a mechanic in Seattle was again visible through the cloud of black he stirred up with the air, he looked sheepish and said: "I hold my breath until the dust settles."

When told that studies show that asbestos fibers can stay airborne for hours or days, he just shrugged.

Some were proud that they were using the so-called "wet method," an OSHA-sanctioned technique for reducing the asbestos hazard that they'd learned in school.

As a Tacoma mechanic hosed down the brake mechanism on a Ford, a black, dusty fog boiled out of a collection pan gathering the dark water at just about his chest level. A gritty film covered his face and his blue denim shirt.

"This is supposed to be the safest way," he said, looking a bit chagrined.

Other workers employed magical thinking about asbestos.

"It's OK, because I always wear gloves," said one.

"Asbestos isn't bad if you don't smoke," said another.

Some believed even if a brake contained asbestos, the residue left over wasn't dangerous.

"By the time we see it, it's all ground down like dirt and can't hurt you like the fibers can," a brake worker said.

Many said they simply held their breath.

But asbestos is invisible. You can't avoid it by blowing out or turning your head. What's more, while smoking does exacerbate the likelihood of disease, thousands of victims who have died from asbestos never smoked.

At many stations, machismo hangs in the air like secondhand smoke. Older mechanics, like campers trading bear stories, swap tales about how much asbestos they have sucked down.

"That's why you don't see any old mechanics," another said with a laugh. But he was only half kidding.

Four out of the 77 repair shops had HEPA vacuum-equipped enclosures for changing brakes -- two at dealers and two at independent stations. Mechanics at both the smaller shops said they couldn't remember the costly rigs ever being used.

"I know how to do it, but I don't use it. It just takes too much time," said one Boston-area mechanic. "I can get four wheels done before I can get one set through the vacuum setup."

CCAR's Titens says the rule is time is money.

"In the independents, they typically work by the hour, which means if they're not working on a car they're not getting paid," he said. "The owner is not going to change his ways voluntarily so you've got this disconnect between these good environmental practices and the need to make a living."

Owners or managers in 11 stations bought respirators for their mechanics. Properly used, they will prevent the inhalation of the lethal fibers. However, in all cases the respirators sat in unopened, dust-covered boxes.

Some mechanics occasionally use paper surgical or dust masks. Almost none of these will stop asbestos fibers from being inhaled.

Titens says CCAR worries about the turnover of about 60,000 mechanics a year.

"The schools only graduate 40,000 a year, so what you get is a lot of on-the-job training which only perpetuates all the faults of the past," he said.

Brian Hughes, an automotive instructor at South Seattle Community College, shares Titens' concern.

"I tell them to assume it is asbestos because the risk factor is too high," he said. But he admits it's difficult to communicate the risks of something students can't see and that won't affect them for many years.

He also stresses that they can't count on employers or oversight groups to protect them, and to speak up if they see unsafe practices.

"I tell them the only one who is going to protect you is you," he said. "You can't expect an organization or a group to do it. You're going to have to be the one who stands up and says this is unacceptable."

He had a sense of humor that permeated everything he did. Even the agonizing death he was fighting from mesothelioma -- a rare form of asbestos-caused cancer that destroys cells that line the chest or abdominal cavity.

"With all this asbestos in me, I'm probably fireproof," Kine joked. "I can eat all the hot chilies there are."

After two decades of running his own auto repair shop, he spent the next 26 years teaching others how to do it. He taught mechanics to hundreds of youths in Spokane's West Valley School District, at Spokane Community College and at the Shelton High School near Olympia. At one point, he was president of the local Washington Education Association.

It was a tightness in his chest, a hard time getting a full gulp of air, that brought him to the doctor in March of 1998.

"First I thought I had a bad cold, or the flu, but I couldn't shake it," Kine recalled.

Some X-rays showed how wrong he was.

"The next morning I was flat on my back in a hospital and they were draining this yellow gunk out of my right lung. Lots of it," he said.

Ultrasounds and CT scans followed immediately.

"I had this huge mass between my right lung and my ribs."

A biopsy to get a sample of the mass became major surgery.

"They started up front," Kine said, pointing to his chest, "and wound up going all they way around to the back and up over the shoulder blade. They were trying to get around the mass, but it was everywhere. It had grown through and all around my ribs."

He had mesothelioma.

"I know what it was. It was in the handouts I gave to my students. It was what I warned them about; it was the ultimate harm that asbestos can do to you if you're sloppy working with brakes and clutches," he said. "And now I'm dying from it."

The survival rate for mesothelioma is usually eight to 12 months. Kine made it almost two years.

He fought hard. Chemotherapy, radiation treatments, dozens of them. They slowed the growth of the cancer, but didn't stop it.

"I'm not afraid of dying, but I'm terrified of leaving Donna alone," Kine said, fighting back the tears as he thought of his wife of 42 years.

"I don't want to be a burden but I really wanted to watch them live their lives," he said, speaking of his daughter, two sons and four grandchildren.

Always the clown, he quickly changed the subject.

"The worst thing about the chemotherapy is that it changes the way things that you loved all your life taste," Kine said.

"My favorite was shortbread animal crackers, but now they taste terrible. Coffee, which I used to almost inhale, tastes ghastly. Life is just funny."

He thought back to when he first learned that asbestos in brakes can kill.

"I guess it was in '83 or '84," he recalled. "We got these fliers from the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) or OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) or some government agency, telling how dangerous asbestos was and how much was contaminating the average guy doing a brake job.

"It just didn't make sense. I'd been messing with asbestos for years and so had every other mechanic I knew. No one ever told us it could kill you." While he was still debating how much attention to pay to the federal warnings, the National Automotive Education Association sent him another batch of pamphlets for his students.

"They were serious. This asbestos was bad stuff. I started think back to all the old mechanics I knew, but I didn't know a lot of old mechanics. Most of them had died of breathing problems or lung cancer and some of them never smoked," he said.

Quickly, he added asbestos dangers to his curriculum.

He remembers telling his students that medical researchers said an exposure lasting only one or two months can result in mesothelioma developing 30 or 40 years later.

"I don't think it sunk in," he said. "These kids were convinced they'd never die, especially not from something they couldn't see. But I kept hammering at them."

He became an auto-repair evangelist, spreading the word of the dangers of the invisible fibers every time he stopped at a gas station.

"God, they were bullheaded. I remember when I was young. I thought nothing could harm me."

Long before he was diagnosed, he wondered about his own exposure.

During the 20 years he ran his own repair shop in Spokane -- Grand Prix Motors -- he was doing four or five major brake jobs a week.

"There was asbestos dust all over the place," he said. "We'd sand the brakes, file them, drill them, grind them and we and everything around us would be covered in that black grit.

"I'd blow my nose and it would be black. I'd wash my hair and the tub would be black."

He said it wasn't just the brakes that had asbestos.

"It was all over the vehicle," he said. "It was in the clutches, the exhaust and intake manifold, the cylinder heads, lots of gaskets. It was everywhere," Kine said.

He was angry that the manufacturers of the cars and the replacement brakes and clutches never warned mechanics of the dangers.

"Not a damn word. Not one. Never," he recalled. "Even in the early '90s the parts salesmen were saying it was much ado about nothing.

"How could they possibly keep something so deadly a secret?"

He didn't understand, he said, why the government went silent.

"I was just amazed. The government was so serious about getting the word out about the dangers from asbestos in the '80s. Then it just stopped, silence, like someone turned off the faucet," he said.

Like almost everyone else, Kine believed that the government had banned asbestos, that new cars no longer used it and replacement parts were now asbestos-free.

"I'd go these gas stations and see the kids covered in dust. Some of the brake boxes still said asbestos on them. Most didn't, but I could tell it was full of those fibers," he said.

"The kids would just shrug. They probably thought I was an old fool."

But Kine didn't quit trying.

"It became easier to hammer my point home after the surgery," he said. "I'd lift by shirt and show them the scars and then they'd pay attention."

Kine was most proud when his students came back to show off their wives and kids.

"I couldn't help wondering, 'Do they have it? Will they get it? Do they remember what I warned them about?'

"My students were not the ones that were going to MIT, but they were going to be damn good mechanics. But would the job kill them?"

As the tumor grew, Kine became weaker, but he kept fighting it off. He had one more thing he wanted to do. In June, the National Model Railroad Association and Circus Model Builders were holding their national convention together in Boise.

Trains and circuses, two of Kine's loves. For years, as Red Nose the Clown, he entertained hundreds of children.

"These go together because in the old days all the circuses traveled by railroad," he said. His collection of model trains was extensive and he wanted to show them off one more time.

Kine went to Boise, clown costume and all, wheeling his oxygen bottle behind him.

"I had to go and I did. It was hard, but it was worth it," he said.

The disease was taking its toll.

"You can't walk anywhere. You've got to plod and I've never been a plodder," Kine said. "My right lung doesn't do anything at all and I've got less than 30 percent function in my left lung. And it's never going to get any better. I'm going to be treading water the rest of my life."

On Aug. 13, he went into the hospital for the last time. He was suffocating from the fluids in his lungs. The cancerous mass had grown so large it was blocking his intestines.

That night he talked about the importance of getting the word out that asbestos was still out there.

"I hear the burst of an air hose and I cringe," Kine said. "Even with my eyes closed I can see the clouds of dust and now, when it's too late, I can almost see the invisible fibers of asbestos. I know it's in there.

"I wish I could do more, but I'm going to die here. EPA, OSHA, someone has got to warn these kids that they're working with death. If the government doesn't do anything, no one will."

Kine died on Aug. 25.

In his will he wrote that he wanted neither funeral nor memorial service.

"I feel they work a hardship on those left behind. I want my relatives to have a good old-fashioned wake instead ... buy a keg or two, prepare food, celebrate my life with a big party. Cab fare will be provided as needed."

Parties were held in Spokane and Olympia.

P-I reporter Carol Smith can be reached at 206-448-8070 or carolsmith@seattle-pi.com
P-I senior national correspondent Andrew Schneider can be reached at 206-448-8218 or andrewschneider@seattle-pi.com

< Return to Top >

ASBESTOS INDUSTRY HAS SHOWN ITS MIGHT

Repeated Attempts by the Government to Ban the Product Have Met with Failure

Thursday, November 16, 2000
By ANDREW SCHNEIDER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/uncivilaction/nose17.shtml

Every major effort the government made to ban asbestos has been thwarted by the U.S. and Canadian miners and producers of the versatile but deadly fibers.

In July 1989, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) passed a ban that would phase out the mining, use or sale of asbestos or asbestos-containing products. But just months later, the agency was sued by asbestos makers. In October 1991, a federal court tossed out the ban.

The court did not question the validity of the scientific and medical evidence collected to support EPA's justification for the ban, but rather, it criticized the agency's cost-benefit analysis.

During the 28 months that the ban existed, U.S. automotive manufacturers -- some of whom had been sued repeatedly for deaths and illness caused by asbestos exposure to mechanics -- worked fiercely to develop substitute materials for brakes.

Worried that the automakers' zeal to dump asbestos would wane, the EPA came up with a plan in 1992.

"It was obvious that asbestos in brakes was still a major concern," said Stephen Johnson, EPA's assistant administrator of the Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances.

"So the agency came up with the idea of enlisting the support of industry on a voluntary approach to agree to reduce exposure and prevent pollution by phasing out the use of asbestos in new vehicles."

For months, the manufacturers and the EPA exchanged letters, faxes and phone calls. The largest U.S. automakers backed the effort and others jumped aboard. A few makers who weren't asked, such as Mercedes Benz, called EPA and signed on.

By September 1993, every major maker of cars, trucks, buses and motorcycles -- 44 of them -- were poised to formally agree to stop using asbestos after November 1994.

The Asbestos Information Association was not happy, and AIA President Bob Pigg did little to hide the group's displeasure.

"Since these asbestos brake parts can be produced, used and repaired safely, there is no reason for EPA to seek termination of their use now or in the future," Pigg said at the time, adding that "workplace controls would protect any worker who might come in contact with asbestos."

EPA officials told Pigg that they were concerned about the "high probability" of workers not following the protective rules and that "consumer (do-it-yourselfer) exposures are likely to be more intense than occupational exposures."

By November 1993, final documents were drawn up with places for each of the 44 chief executives to sign. A press conference to unveil the agreement was scheduled.

But two days before the deadline, the initiative fell apart when the asbestos industry again threatened to sue all parties involved.

"It was very, very close," Johnson said. "In the midst of it the AIA raised huge issues about this being antitrust. It's clear that they threatened the manufacturers and informed us that the asbestos industry saw it as an antitrust violation.

"All the manufacturers got very cold feet and said they were no longer interested in a voluntary approach."

EPA scrubbed the effort.

The veterans of the government's battle against asbestos were weary and scarred.

"They tried to do a rule and that didn't work. They tried to do it voluntarily and that didn't work. What else was left to do?" Johnson said.

"To say that it's frustrating is putting it very mildly."

Many in EPA who worked on the early research continued to worry about the lethal levels of asbestos that would swirl around repair stations for years to come.

Efforts to resurrect new plans to battle asbestos, even small skirmishes, have been shot down by EPA's top management, agency workers say.

EPA staff members said that in one of Administrator Carol Browner's early speeches after taking the job as head of the agency, she told them that asbestos is a problem of the past, and to put it behind them.

EPA public affairs officials said Browner was not available to be interviewed.

< Return to Top >

NATION'S MECHANICS AT RISK FROM ASBESTOS

Deadly Fibers Are Found in Brakes, but Officials Have Kept Silent

Thursday, November 16, 2000
By ANDREW SCHNEIDER AND CAROL SMITH
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/uncivilaction/brks16.shtml

Millions of brakes on cars and trucks -- and millions more waiting on parts-shop shelves nationwide -- contain asbestos fibers that can kill mechanics.

Federal health and safety officials acknowledge the risks inherent in asbestos brakes. Yet the agencies, apparently relying on the auto industry to police itself, have done nothing in recent years to warn workers or check on workplace safety.

Almost everybody interviewed during the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's four-month investigation -- mechanics and the government officials charged with protecting them alike -- said they thought asbestos had been taken out of brakes years ago.

"It's an intolerable risk," said Dr. William Nicholson, professor emeritus at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and a leading authority on the hazards of asbestos in brakes.

Tests conducted for the P-I by government-certified laboratories found alarmingly high levels of asbestos contamination in gas stations and brake-repair shops in the District of Columbia and six states, including Washington. Public health experts said the exposure levels were so high in some locations that more than one in 10 mechanics working without protective gear would likely contract cancer.

But the government has issued no warnings to the nation's 750,000 brake mechanics in the past decade. No alarms have been sounded by worker safety, environmental or public-health officials because no one has looked at the dangers.

"The government is not doing its job," said Dr. Richard Lemen, a former U.S. deputy surgeon general.

During the past three months, the P-I collected samples of dust from floors, work areas and tool bins in 31 brake-repair garages in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Richmond, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Asbestos, almost exclusively chrysotile, which has been used for decades in brakes, was detected in 21 of the locations. The amount of asbestos in the dust ranged from 2.26 percent to 63.8 percent.

Personnel working for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) entering any area where asbestos contamination of material is 1 percent or higher are required to wear protective suits and full-face respirators.

"If the measurements are valid, that's a very concentrated source of asbestos in the dust," said Aaron Sussell, an industrial hygienist with the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in Cincinnati. "At those levels, it's not going to take a lot to put asbestos into the air at a hazardous level."

In several repair bays, the P-I analysis found mechanics were being exposed to large amounts of airborne fibers. Most health experts agree that the primary exposure route or pathway for asbestos to cause harm is inhalation.

In air samples taken during nine brake jobs, analysis found significant amounts of asbestos in six.

"Assuming the samples were properly collected, the results indicate some workers' exposure was about 43 times higher than what is recommended," said Dr. Christopher Weis, regional toxicologist with the EPA in Denver. "At these exposure levels the theoretical risks to those mechanics would be on the order of about 1.5 increased cancers for every 10 workers."

That level of risk, Weis cautioned, is calculated on exposures continuing for a full career.

"Actual worker risks may be higher or lower depending upon individual susceptibilities and environmental factors," he added.

Mount Sinai's Nicholson, who has been researching the link between asbestos and disease for 30 years, agreed with Weis' assessment.

"For it (asbestos) still to be hanging around in the year 2000, in products it need not be in, is just amazing. It really is a concern that must be addressed."

Confronting asbestos

Bill Rice is a jocular, graying mechanic. For most of his 60 years he has managed and owned seven auto shops in the Puget Sound area. He was one of the few mechanics willing to participate in air monitoring and speak on the record about it.

Rice refused the offer of a respirator, as did the other eight mechanics who agreed to be tested for the P-I.

"I probably swallowed so much asbestos in the old days that I'm fireproof," he jokes, his laughter a bit forced.

Working mask-free with his bare hands, Rice wrestles a brake drum off the rear wheel of an old bronze Buick and drops it to the ground. A cloud of black dust mushrooms into the air.

"There's a lot of dust in the drum," he says. "That's why I drop 'em -- to get most of that stuff out."

Mechanics need a clean surface to remount the new brakes.

"When I started doing this back in '64 we used a whisk," he says, preparing to hose down the exposed brake surface with water.

"I should be wearing a mask," he says with a laugh. Dust forced into the air by the stream of liquid hitting the collecting pan swirls near his face. "But nobody does."

Rice hands the drum off to Larry Carpenter, 35, who will turn it on a lathe to restore its shape before it's replaced. Carpenter puts a paper mask on for the job, something he never used to do and something that offers little or no protection against the deadly fibers. He's worried now about asbestos.

"I've been doing this for 18 years and I never thought about it," he says. "All the manufacturers, all the after-market parts suppliers, everybody who sells parts -- that's all you heard -- no asbestos."

For a century, asbestos has been used to line brakes. The heavy woven fiber tolerates heat better than most materials.

Asbestos has been used to line brake shoes, half-moon-shaped metal parts inside the brake drum, which is sandwiched between the wheel rim and the wheel hub. When the brakes are applied, the brake shoes are forced into contact with the inside surface of the brake drums to slow the rotation of the wheels.

Analysis of the old brakes Rice removed from the Buick showed 55 percent asbestos. The dust covered his clothing and hands, and the floor and work area contained more than 17 percent of the chrysotile fiber. The results of the air monitoring showed dangerous levels of the cancer-causing dust was in the air he was breathing.

"This stuff can be killing you and you'd never know it until you were dead," he said, reacting to the test results.

Early warnings

In the 1970s and 1980s, the EPA, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) and the U.S. Public Health Service all worried about the asbestos-caused deaths of thousands of mechanics who worked on brakes and clutches.

An accurate death count may never be known because the impact of asbestos-related disease occurs from 15 to 40 years after exposure.

Plainly written, blunt and graphic descriptions of the cancer dangers were produced and shipped to all public high schools and vocational-technical schools in the United States in 1986 and 1987, said Steven Johnson, EPA's deputy assistant administration for the Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances.

The government warned that:

"Asbestos released into the air can linger long after a brake job is done and since asbestos can spread 75 feet from the work area, it can be breathed in by everyone inside a garage, including customers.

"Asbestos can be carried on work clothing, contaminating the family car and home. This can cause asbestos disease among family members."

But since the early '90s, government safety efforts -- at the state and federal levels -- have stagnated. Federal research programs to find ways to control asbestos exposure among auto workers slammed to a halt. The government quit paying for them. Auto worker exposure was no longer a priority.

Interviews with state and federal occupational health and safety agencies and the EPA garnered the same comments: There is no indication that auto workers are still being harmed by asbestos. But the same agencies reluctantly conceded that they hadn't checked.

"We don't know how many cars that pull into service stations to have their brakes relined have old asbestos linings. We don't know whether these workers are being exposed. We just don't know," said Peter Infante, OSHA's director of the Office of Standards Review.

Interviews with state and federal officials uncovered only a handful of inspections during the past five years specifically for asbestos exposure of brake workers. None was found where air sampling for asbestos was done at repair stations.

"If you don't do air monitoring, you can't determine compliance," Infante said.

EPA's Johnson said his agency "is concerned for anybody exposed to asbestos."

But when asked if EPA had done anything in the past five years to determine whether auto mechanics were still being exposed to lethal levels of asbestos, Johnson said, "No. We have not gone out and tried to search that information out."

In 23 states, OSHA has given the responsibility for worker safety to state government.

"I am unaware of any OSHA State Plan states that are currently targeting auto-repair shops for asbestos exposures," said Keith Goddard, president of the association representing those state programs.

Of the dozen OSHA states contacted by the P-I, all but one, including Washington, said they believed the problem of asbestos in brakes no longer existed, and that they did little or no routine air monitoring of gas stations for asbestos.

"We don't specifically target (auto repair shops)," said Barry Jones, manager of enforcement for Oregon OSHA. "We haven't targeted it because it's mostly gone."

North Carolina doesn't either.

"In the three years that I've been here, it's not been an issue," said Bob Andrews, director of North Carolina's OSHA program. "Most brake pads don't have it anymore."

'It was banned'

Those most at risk -- the mechanics -- believe there is no longer asbestos in brakes. In interviews with 143 repair-shop managers and owners, auto-parts salesmen and mechanics across the country, 137 of them said there was nothing to worry about because the government outlawed the use of asbestos years ago.

At a Seattle outlet for a national parts chain, a sales clerk said, "None of the brakes we sell have asbestos. It was banned." The clerk invited a reporter into the storeroom to see for herself.

The first box of brakes the clerk handed her was plainly marked "contains asbestos."

He told her the interview was over and asked her to leave.

Consumer Product Safety Commission spokesman Russ Rader said, "Our legislation prohibits us from regulating car parts."

That responsibility, Rader said, falls to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But an NHTSA spokesman was unaware that asbestos was still being used in brakes.

"That (asbestos) hasn't been allowed in brakes for some time," said NHTSA spokesman Tim Hurd. "We don't test for asbestos in car brakes. It's not covered by any of our safety standards."

NHTSA asks brake manufacturers to certify that their brakes meet certain performance standards, such as stopping distances, but does not require brake manufacturers to list the ingredients in their brakes.

"That's not something we have jurisdiction over," he said.

Even scientists and doctors who specialized in researching asbestos exposure to auto workers admit they didn't know asbestos brakes were still being sold.

"I'm surprised there was asbestos. I was startled at the numbers," said Dennis O'Brien, acting deputy director of NIOSH's division of applied research and technology, when asked about the results of the P-I's testing.

"I thought the EPA had banned it 10 years ago and that the ban had taken effect. In addition, I thought the product liability would have forced it off the market."

In 1989, EPA did succeed in getting a ban against all asbestos products, but it was short-lived. Two years later the Canadian and U.S. asbestos industry sued EPA in federal court and succeeded in getting the ban thrown out -- not on its scientific merits but on the agency's cost-benefit analysis.

In 1993, the agency came to the brink of getting all makers of cars, trucks, buses and motorcycles for sale in the United States to voluntarily agree to halt the use of asbestos within a year. Again, the asbestos industry intervened and threatened to file antitrust suits. Again, the effort failed. (See accompanying story.)

"It frustrated everyone involved," Johnson said. "EPA believed we had exhausted the remedies available to us under our legal authority."

The only government initiative to squeeze past asbestos interests was a set of workplace standards for asbestos workers adopted by OSHA in 1994. But even those were a watered-down version of the protection that OSHA's staff and consultants felt was needed.

That final effort was followed by a near-total halt to monitoring asbestos exposure in auto workers.

"OSHA should have been testing," Lemen said. "NIOSH should have been testing, and EPA should have been testing.

"For them to say there is not a problem based upon the fact that they've done no testing is irresponsible."

Replacement-parts risk

Brakes on many new vehicles may not contain asbestos.

The makers of 40 cars and light trucks were questioned by the P-I. All but two said they had stopped using the lethal fibers. General Motors said asbestos was still being used in its Chevy Cavalier and the Pontiac Sunbird and Sunfire models. Chrysler refused to answer the question "for competitive reasons."

Clearly the lingering risk may not be with asbestos friction material on new vehicles, but with existing brakes and those being sold as replacements.

The P-I bought sets of new replacement brakes for eight different models of cars and light trucks. Four were labeled as containing asbestos, two had no markings and two were marked "asbestos-free."

Laboratory analysis of the brakes showed that three of the four labeled "asbestos" contained chrysotile and one of the unmarked brakes contained large amounts of tremolite and actinolite, both cancer-causing asbestos fibers. One of the "asbestos-free" brakes also contained tremolite, but at a lower level.

The tremolite is believed to be a contaminant of the vermiculite that most manufacturers use as a filler in brakes. Other makers have used larger amounts as a substitute for asbestos.

If what brake suppliers estimate is accurate, hundreds of different styles of replacement brakes will continue to be made with asbestos and mechanics will continue to play Russian roulette with bullets in half the chambers.

It is estimated that as many as 15 companies manufacture brakes for new cars and between 25 and 50, many of them mom-and-pop operations, are in the business of rebuilding old brakes. Identifying those companies is difficult. In many cases, manufacturers' names and addresses do not appear on the packaging for the brakes.

The P-I identified six manufacturers. Only one, the nation's largest producer of brakes and the maker of the well-known Raybestos brand, agreed to talk on the record.

"There may be a perception that asbestos doesn't exist in brakes being sold today, but it does exist and in significant numbers of products sold by various manufacturers, including us," said Alan Morrissey, vice president of product development for Brake Products Inc. in McHenry, Ill.

"We would like to see asbestos in brake linings banned by the government. It will be safer for everyone. Nevertheless, by next year we will no longer produce any asbestos-containing brakes. It's our decision."

Brakes that the company sells under the Raybestos brand all carry warnings to avoid dust.

"The reasons we have warnings on all of our boxes, whether they have asbestos or not, is that one never knows which fiber in the future will have the potential of having some untoward health problems," Morrissey said.

Even when EPA believed it would get a voluntary ban from automakers, its technical experts worried over the "potential for enormous exposures" from replacement brakes.

"There appears to be little accountability or control that we or any other agency can put on this segment of the automotive industry," said a 1993 EPA memo that talked of "scores of mom-and-pop operations rebuilding brakes with asbestos."

"We have no reason to believe that (they) will ever voluntarily stop using asbestos. The profits are too great. The controls are too loose," the memo continued. It warned that unless asbestos was also removed from replacement brakes, "deaths from asbestos-related diseases 20 or 30 years down the road will be counted in the tens of thousands."

Bob Pigg, president of the Asbestos Information Association, an industry trade group, insists that there is no danger in asbestos brakes.

"The public's exposure to asbestos, if any, is just negligible. There is no public-health risk from using asbestos as a friction material, absolutely none at all," he said.

Deaths expected to rise

Mount Sinai professor Nicholson's extensive research supported the EPA's fear of continuing dangers to auto mechanics.

He estimated about 6 million mechanics have been exposed to asbestos in brakes since 1940, and that those exposures are now resulting in about 580 excess asbestos-related cancer deaths a year.

Within 10 years, the expected rate of mesothelioma deaths alone will be 200 a year from exposure to brake dust, he said.

Other experts acknowledge that for each case of mesothelioma that is diagnosed, there may be dozens of cases of asbestosis.

Deaths caused by exposure to asbestos brake products had been expected to peak about 2012, but if asbestos is still in brakes being sold today, it could mean the deaths would continue to climb.

"This would push the peak back," he said. "Cancer from asbestos is a horrible way to die."

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CANCER VICTIM CHANGED HIS OWN BRAKES FOR YEARS

'What They (Brake Manufacturers) Gave Me Is a Death Sentence'

Thursday, November 16, 2000
By CAROL SMITH
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/uncivilaction/vcts16.shtml

Fred Mirante, 65, a feisty former Boeing worker, fast-pitch softball player and Hollywood truck driver, loved to work on cars.

That passion may have cost him his life.

In February, Mirante discovered he had mesothelioma, a nasty tumor that has wrapped itself around his rib and begun marching relentlessly through his chest. Mirante suspects he got the cancer, which is caused by asbestos, by changing his own brakes over the years.

Like many other workers of his generation, he may also have been exposed through proximity to asbestos-wrapped pipes, or home remodeling projects using asbestos joint compound to install wallboard.

But Mirante, still wiry and tough even after five regimens of chemotherapy and a lifetime limit's worth of radiation, is particularly angry about the brakes.

"I think they ought to send the companies to criminal court and put 'em away if not hang 'em," he said. "There can't be too strong a word. What they gave me is a death sentence. What gives them the privilege to kill people and get by with it?"

Mirante worked on his own cars to save money, but also to ensure the safety of his wife and two daughters.

"I loved foolin' around with cars, keeping them running," he said in an interview. "And when I did brakes, I knew it was done right."

Mirante believes he breathed asbestos-laden dust from the cars.

"They were asbestos brake linings, and I did a lot of brake jobs and tune-ups and stuff on my cars," he said in a recent deposition.

"You couldn't afford new cars in those days, so -- we're talking back in the '50s and '60s there -- sometimes you could buy a car for $100 or $200. So you'd buy one and keep it running, fix it up."

He doesn't recall being warned about asbestos in brakes. He didn't use a respirator or know not to breathe the dust.

In fact, he says ruefully, he just blew asbestos out of brake drums with his mouth. "That's how you'd do it. You'd sit there, have a little bit on there, and just by mouth (blow it off)."

And that wasn't all.

"With the new shoes, sometimes, they wouldn't go on too easy . . . So you'd be whacking them with a hammer or pushing on them with your feet. Sometimes you'd take it back off and you'd have to file this outer edge," he said, running his fingers along the edge of a brake shoe to demonstrate.

"In fact, if you were lazy and you were sticking your head around the wheel well fender and just kind of leaving them (the brake shoes) on there -- once you got them on there it's tough to take it all back off again, so sometimes you would stick your head (in) and be really close to it (while filing)."

He regrets that now.

"The hardest thing? Probably knowing you're going to die . . . because that's pretty much a definite with this mesothelioma," he said, looking down, his jaw clenched to hide his emotions.

Up until recently, Mirante was still running around Green Lake several times a week to keep his baseball weight of 162 pounds. He still has a gym membership.

"You work for 40-something years to retire so you can do your camping, which we do a lot, and travel. My wife and I both wanted to go to Europe and see where our ancestors were born and back East and travel. That's all down the tube. Can't do it.

"It makes you mad, mad that I did everything right. I tried to eat right and do everything right and now all of a sudden -- not because of me, it's because of the asbestos companies -- I'm going to die."

Mirante's Seattle oncologists have said there's nothing more they can do. He is back East now "looking for some hope."

He said in his deposition that if he'd been warned that putting brakes on would kill him, he wouldn't have done it.

"I'm stupid," he said with a wry chuckle, "but I'm not that stupid."

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*** POSTED MARCH 16, 2001 ***