Is Asbestos Deadly? You Decide....

The following excerpts are taken from a four part special report that appeared in USA Today, February 10 and 11, 1999.

ON THE WORLD SCENE

• Deadly epidemic of asbestos-related disease emerging in the poorer nations of the world.
• Deadly epidemic will dwarf the devastation of an earlier epidemic in the USA and Western Europe.
• Asbestos demands have plummeted in the industrialized world the past 25 years.
• Some towns in Eastern Europe are so contaminated with asbestos that if in the USA they would qualify as Superfund environmental cleanup sites and would be evacuated by the federal government.
• In China, prisoners are forced to work in asbestos mines.
• Deaths are expected to rise to at least 1 million over the next 30 years.
• The developing world is using asbestos in exactly the way that we [USA] did until about 1980.
• The death toll will be enormous and far outnumber asbestos-related deaths in the USA, which peaked at 7,500 in 1991.
• Ninety percent of these deaths could be prevented by the use of a good-fitting face mask that costs just a few dollars.
• In the 1970's workers began winning large legal judgments against asbestos companies, asbestos consumption in the USA started to fall. It dropped from a peak of 800,000 metric tons in 1973 to 21,000 tons in 1996. (A metric ton is 2,200 pounds.)
• Asbestos fibers caused an estimated 171,500 cancer death in the USA from 1967 to 1997. An additional 118,700 cancer deaths are predicted before the epidemic runs its course in 2027.
• Asbestos consumption in Thailand rose from 21,217 metric tons in 1970 to 164,000 tons in 1994.
• In India, asbestos consumption grew from 5,600 metric tons to 123,000 tons in the same period.
• In Brazil an estimated 200,000 workers use asbestos in their jobs today.

RUSSIA & POLAND

• Asbestos related death in Russia are not expected to peak until 2010.
• Russia has been world's largest asbestos producer for 50 years. It still produces 720,000 metric tons a year, one-third of the world's total.
• Unsafe use of asbestos continued with little modification until the fall of communism in 1991.
• In Szczucin, Poland, mothers used asbestos to knit sweaters for children, rugs and slipcovers and many residence kept piles of asbestos on-hand for little projects around the house. The town has the highest cancer rate in Poland and what is believed to be the highest cancer death rate in Europe.
• Russian scientists maintain that asbestos related disease is virtually non-existent.
• In 1987, a shipyard doctor was removed from his position because he warned workers of the dangers of asbestos.
• The dangers of asbestos were well-known and discussed by Soviet bloc scientist since the 1960's, but it never got outside the scientist's community.
• Russian shipyard workers were exposed to 50 times the Soviet-era standard.
• In one Russian shipyard, four carpenters in a shop of twenty men died of mesothelioma. 'Officially', the men had no contact with asbestos.
• Poland reports 70 cancer death per year from occupational causes. It is estimated that the true figure is 2,500.
• In September of 1998, Poland banned asbestos after 40 years of manufacturing asbestos products.
• Starting this year, asbestos safety will be taught in public schools. A textbook on the dangers of asbestos has been prepared.

SOUTH AFRICA

• In South Africa few resources are available to clean up the country's 134 abandoned mines and 400 open asbestos dumps.
• South Africa has the world's highest rate of mesothelioma. The death rate is not expected to peak for another 10 to 20 years.
• Blacks made up more than 90% of the work force in South African asbestos mines. They were never told about the dangers of asbestos. They were usually assigned jobs with the highest asbestos exposure.
• Even today ,government data is based on white patients. Only about 200 cases of mesothelioma are reported every year, most of them in whites.
• According to government figures, about 500 South African men and one in every 2,000 women stands a lifetime risk of getting mesothelioma.
• In certain parts of the country the risk is as high as one in 100 of getting mesothelioma.
• Blacks are unreported and suspected to be misdiagnosed.
• The data is incomplete because it is based on autopsies, which are limited by race and geography.
• At least tens of thousands of people have died so far. Asbestos related death won't peak until 2010 to 2020.
• It was only 20 years ago that production [in South Africa] was at its peak, and the mines employed 20,000.
• In 1984, a government research went to Mafefe, South Africa and determined that four in ten adults had asbestos related lung scarring.
• The provincial government of South Africa enlisted volunteer doctors to X-ray more than 1,000 residents of Prieska in 1997. Though 789 tested clear, 247 who had been exposed to asbestos in the work place had damaged lungs, as did another 42 whose only exposure was environmental.
• Over 12 years, 44 million rand about $7.3 million at today's exchange rate has been spent contouring and planting shrubs over old sites. This year's budget is $1 million. The final bill is expected to exceed $25 million taking 10 to 15 years to complete the work.

ASBESTOS REMOVAL - FACT OR FICTION

• Asbestos removal, has cost an estimated $50 billion over the past 20 years.
• Despite minimal risk, asbestos continues to be removed from U.S. buildings at a cost of about $3 million a year, largely because the risks were overestimated two decades ago.
• For each life saved, asbestos removal cost $100 million to $500 million.
• At its peak in 1973, the United States used 795,000 metric tons of asbestos in roofs, floors, insulation and hundreds of other products.
• The crusade to remove asbestos results from a failure to make a distinction about when asbestos is dangerous.
• Asbestos dust has caused tragic rates of cancer in miners and workers who made and installed asbestos products with insufficient precautions. The workers inhaled asbestos fibers, often for years or decades.
• Once a product with asbestos is installed, so few fibers are released that the air inside even the most asbestos-rich building is indistinguishable from the air outdoors.
• Why have Americans spent billions attacking a minor health risk? The experts say the fear created by the health tragedy that befell asbestos worker and the multi billiondollar lawsuits that followed overwhelmed the scientific evidence.
• In the past 30 years, 171,500 workers in the United States have died of asbestos related cancers, the worst occupational health disaster of the century.
• An additional 119,000 U.S. deaths are expected before the epidemic winds down in 2025.
• Unsafe use of asbestos in poorer nations will cause 30,000 cancer death per year for the foreseeable future.
• So far, 40,000 lawsuits have been resolved; 200,000 are pending.
• The risk to U.S. workers form asbestos has been reduced dramatically by relatively inexpensive safety techniques, such as improving ventilation, wetting the dust with water and using respirators.
• The legal limit on asbestos exposure for workers is 0.1 fibers per cubic centimeter of air, and compliance has not been a problem.
• Once asbestos is installed, it rarely causes problems to a building's users.
• Asbestos removal continues on a large scale when there is concrete proof of no danger.
• Epidemiologist - doctors who study risk - are especially frustrated that asbestos spending has continued despite broad agreement among scientists that it's a waste of money.
• Olin Jennings, a Columbia, New Jersey consultant estimates that 15% to 33% of spending on asbestos removal has been in schools. New York City schools have spent more than $100 million.
• Malcolm Ross, a retired geologist, says the environment is full of environmental risk and it makes little sense to target a substance of relatively low risk with an unlimited budget.

*** POSTED FEBRUARY 23, 1999 ***

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