-Caveat Lector-
DESPITE BILLIONS SPENT ON CLEANUP, ASBESTOS THREAT NEGLIGIBLE
USA Today says that its own investigation has found
"incontrovertible scientific evidence that asbestos in buildings
creates a cancer risk so minimal that it barely can be measured."
Yet asbestos removal has been the biggest environmental cleanup
project in U.S. history.
The newspaper says the risks from asbestos were over-estimated
two decades ago and new scientific evidence has never changed the
public perception that asbestos in any form is deadly.
o Asbestos abatement -- which removes or seals the fire
resistant fibers in place -- has cost an estimated $50
billion over the past 20 years, and costs continue to
mount at the rate of $3 billion a year.
o While mining and manufacturing asbestos in the developing
world produces cancer risks, the amount spent on asbestos
removal in the U.S. "makes no sense from a public health
standpoint," according to Michael Thune, chief
epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society.
o He says that the risk of getting cancer for asbestos in
buildings that eliminating it wouldn't cause a measurable
blip in the 171,000 lung cancer deaths that occur every
year.
o For each life saved, asbestos removal costs $100 million
to $500 million.
In court cases in the 1970s and the 1980s, plaintiffs' lawyers
went after asbestos companies. So far, 40,000 lawsuits have been
resolved -- but another 200,000 are pending. The lawsuits forced
Johns-Manville Corp. to seek bankruptcy protection in 1982 and
turn over 80 percent of its stock to workers exposed to asbestos.
Since then, the company has emerged from bankruptcy but public
hysteria has not given way to rational evaluation.
Source: Dennis Cauchon, "When Removing Asbestos Makes No Sense,"
USA Today, February 11, 1999.
For more on the Environment go to
http://www.ncpa.org/pi/enviro/envdex1.html
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