Study Attacks Removal Policy for Asbestos
Widespread removal of asbestos from U.S. schools and buildings poses greater health risks than just leaving the material in place, according to a comprehensive study attacking the nation’s asbestos-removal policy and published in the journal Science today.
The study, which reviewed data on asbestos-related cancers and the level of asbestos in hundreds of public schools and buildings, concluded that low-level exposure to airborne concentrations of chrysotile asbestos, the type that exists in most structures across the country, poses relatively few health risks compared to other types of asbestos.
In fact, the study concludes, the determination by many federal and state health officials to remove asbestos only creates a risk to workers hired to remove the substance and does not substantially lower the risk to the building’s occupants.
The findings are almost certain to stir the national debate on the health risks posed by asbestos.
“I think that to make claims that (asbestos) is innocuous is wrong,” said Dr. William Nicholson, professor of community medicine at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York. “All public policy must be based on the probability that there is risk.”
The Environmental Protection Agency requires all schools and buildings to be inspected for “friable,” or deteriorating, asbestos and calls for removal or repair in such cases.
“Clearly, the asbestos panic in the United States must be curtailed, especially because unwarranted, poorly controlled asbestos abatement results in unnecessary risks to young removal workers who may develop asbestos-related cancers in later decades,” the team of medical researchers wrote.
In the study of more than 400 air samples from schools and buildings, the researchers found no difference between airborne asbestos levels inside or outside the structures. The researchers said that removal of “previously undamaged or encapsulated asbestos can lead to an increase in airborne concentrations of fibers in buildings . . . and can result in problems with safe removal and disposal.”
“What we learned is that you will breath the same amount indoors or outdoors,” said researcher Morton Corn, director of the division of Environmental Health Engineering at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. “There really isn’t an occupant problem in schools and buildings. The best way to deal with asbestos is to live with it.”
The EPA policy does not take into account the type of asbestos present in structures. But the new study suggests that the hazards are directly related to the type and size of the asbestos fibers released into the air.
Dr. J. Bernard Gee, professor of Internal Medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine and one of the authors of the study, said that their research indicates that most asbestos-related lung diseases, including cancer, appear linked to a type of asbestos called amphibole, a needle-like fiber. However, chrysotile, the type of asbestos with curly fibers and the kind predominantly found in U.S. and Canadian schools, appears to have more difficulty penetrating the lungs, he said.
“Nobody is saying you mustn’t be careful, but there is no reason for the generalized, widespread removal of all asbestos,” Gee said. “What is being done in renovating a lot of public buildings makes no sense from a medical, biological or environmental standpoint. In our judgment, it’s a monumental waste of money.”
But Charles Elkins, director of the EPA’s Office of Toxic Substances, disagreed. “We just don’t have the information to give a clean bill of health to any of these fibers,” he said. “We agree people should not panic if asbestos is found, but to write it off as an insignificant risk is misleading, because the risks are there.”
Gee said that rather than automatically removing or covering crumbling asbestos, tests should be conducted to determine the type of asbestos and the amount entering the air. The study contends that the EPA’s asbestos removal policy has “resulted in the explosive growth of asbestos identification and removal companies.” The study’s authors estimate the cost of removing the substance from most of the nation’s buildings at $100 billion to $150 billion.
Other asbestos researchers called the EPA’s removal policy prudent and suggested that the study could be misleading.
“Just to dismiss the health risk because the asbestos may be chrysotile would be wrong,” Mt. Sinai’s Nicholson said. “The EPA policy is based on the idea that if you have asbestos, you want to do everything you can to prevent exposure, and I think that’s an appropriate policy.”
In a sweeping effort aimed at heading off a leading cause of lung cancer, the EPA last year ordered a nearly total ban on the use of asbestos. Under the ban, the manufacture or importation of 94% of asbestos-containing products, including roof shingles, automobile brakes and concrete pipes, is to be outlawed in the United States by 1996.
Asbestos, the generic name for a host of naturally occurring fibrous minerals, tends to break down into a dust of tiny fibers that can be easily inhaled. The substance’s remarkable durability permits asbestos fibers to remain in the body for years, contributing to the long delays between exposure and the emergence of asbestos-related diseases.
Once considered the “miracle mineral” for its strength and durability, asbestos has since gained infamy as a deadly invisible poison responsible for thousands of deaths each year.
“What this study tells us is that as a national policy, we’ve overreacted,” Corn said. “If there is a need to remove failed asbestos products, health should not always be invoked as the reason.”
