[HN Gopher] Asbestosis
___________________________________________________________________
Asbestosis
Author : zeristor
Score : 195 points
Date : 2025-10-26 08:34 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (diamondgeezer.blogspot.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (diamondgeezer.blogspot.com)
| XorNot wrote:
| Asbestos is genuinely more terrifying then nuclear radiation.
|
| If something is radioactive then a Geiger counter will tell you
| at a distance, it'll even triangulate it.
|
| Asbestos? It can be everywhere and the only way to know is to
| collect samples, pay $100 a piece to a lab to do phase contrast
| microscopy and wait.
|
| Then do it again the next time you find something suspicious.
|
| And once you've cleaned it out..well hope your handling was good
| coz who knows if you got it all - without collecting a lot of
| samples and testing again.
|
| My house has a few asbestos pieces, and in digging up the yard
| I've pulled a huge amount of asbestos fiber cement from cheap
| renovations by previous owners - the stuff was about 10 cm below
| the surface.
| CheeseFromLidl wrote:
| Its carcinogenic "modus operandi" is also completely different
| to anything else. Asbestos is chemically inert, so how does is
| cause cancer? The tiny crystalline needles puncture cells,
| sometimes during cell division, and strands of dna will get
| tangled up and result in messed up genetics.
| Aldipower wrote:
| Yes and I would like to add, it is all about the "dose". It
| is a common misconception that tangled DNA will automatically
| lead to spreading cancer. Per day a normal person develops
| tangled up dna cells in the hundreds, that is a normal
| process, but the immune system can handle it without problems
| and can get rid of it (unfortunately not always). So with
| Asbestos it is all about the dose too. Although a relative
| small amount could be already _potential_ harmful.
| jabl wrote:
| I'm not a doctor or researcher in that field, but my
| understanding is that cancer is not 'one disease', but rather
| a huge number of different diseases which mostly have in
| common that they develop some kind of tumors.
|
| That's also one reason why progress in cancer research and
| drug development is so slow. 'Fix' one cancer, and what
| you've developed likely has little effect on the zillion
| other cancer variants.
| bregma wrote:
| Mesothelioma caused by asbestos is only a single disease.
| It has a known cause. It has been well researched. The
| causal links are clear: prevention is the answer. It
| doesn't matter that other cancers are different diseases,
| that is irrelevant to mesothelioma caused by asbestos.
| jabl wrote:
| Yes, I agree with all of the above. I was just pointing
| out that cancer from asbestos being different from other
| cancers isn't so unique since a lot of cancers are
| different from all other cancers.
| anovikov wrote:
| It's not at all uncommon. Virtually everything that has tiny
| sharp pieces in it, will work like that. Graphene for
| instance.
| CheeseFromLidl wrote:
| You're correct. Iirc the blueish smoke from car tires share
| a similar property.
| bfkwlfkjf wrote:
| Which cheese from Lidl do you recommend? I'm in the UK.
| ortusdux wrote:
| IIRC, asbestos does not directly cause cells to become
| cancerous, but it is an irritant that reawakens cancerous
| cells the body had forced into dormancy.
| emmelaich wrote:
| If it's intact and below surface the risk is far lower. You
| have to worry about airborne asbestos.
|
| Not saying you should ignore it but don't dig it up without
| knowing what you're in for.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I know its not fashionable, but things like asbestos is the point
| of regulation.
|
| If you ignore the health effects, asbestos is a fucking brilliant
| material, strong(if used with a binder) exceptionally fireproof,
| UV stable and fairly inert.
|
| Why _wouldn't_ you use it? To use modern parlance; only melts
| wouldn't use it, thats who (this message brought to you by your
| friendly corporate sponsor...)
|
| The problem is that it still kills now[1]. Because its a time
| bomb, with a dwell time of well over 10-20 years, its very lard
| to pin point the cause.
|
| The only way that its _stopped_ being put into building materials
| is through regulation. The problem now for us, especailly in the
| UK is the power of regulation is being ablated through
| incompetence, funding cuts and a concerted effort by those who
| stand to benefit from a weakened regulatory system.
|
| Most regulation is formed from the blood of victims. We may not
| _like_ what the regulation is, and lord knows it needs improving.
| But to not have it, or worst, have it and not be enforced, is a
| terrible state of affairs.
|
| [1]https://neu.org.uk/latest/library/what-real-risk-asbestos-
| sc...
| DrewADesign wrote:
| Our business leaders have successfully painted
| shortsightedness, greed, and nihilism as beneficial business
| traits embraced by adults willing to accept life's difficult
| realities.
|
| In reality, only personal and group morality protected our
| society from such forces, and letting ethics retard profit and
| growth became seriously uncool in the 80s hippie backlash.
| jabl wrote:
| Luckily thanks to regulation the use of asbestos in new builds
| has almost completely been eliminated (I'm sure there are some
| uses somewhere where it's indispensable?), but there's of
| course a huge number of places where it turns up in all kinds
| of renovation projects.
|
| In addition to buildings, e.g. ships. Think about a steamship,
| what material that is fireproof and doesn't rot do you think
| they used for insulating boilers and steam pipes? One museum
| ship I'm somewhat familiar with ripped out all the asbestos
| insulation and replaced it with IIRC mostly mineral or glass
| wool during a major renovation some years back, just to make it
| safer for the mostly volunteers who dedicate their time to keep
| the ship functioning.
| cjrp wrote:
| Ships, especially navy ships, have lead to lots of
| mesothelioma cases in later life.
| jaccola wrote:
| Would you buy a product with asbestos in if it wasn't regulated
| against? (Assuming we removed all similar regulation so the
| lack of regulation does not its self imply safety.)
|
| Of course you wouldn't.
|
| We have journalists to uncover dangers like this; they are
| clearly financially incentivised to do so. We have courts to
| assess damages. We don't need government regulation.
|
| Such a common trope that "the heartless capitalist doesn't care
| about harming customers so we need the government to save us".
| Of course the capitalist cares about harming customers, she
| needs to sell to them (and their competitors product will be
| much more successful if it is not harmful!).
|
| And, in either case, regulation or free market will only save
| us if there are viable alternatives. Fossil fuels still kill
| people, but we don't regulate against it because there is
| currently no viable alternative.
| gausswho wrote:
| Would you buy a product with asbestos in it if its presence
| wasn't disclosed? You might, if it provided value vs
| alternatives.
|
| Manufacturers are successuful when they sell. If their
| product is found dangerous they a) deny and muddy the waters,
| b) settle lawsuits and if that doesn't work c) close up shop
| and open a new business. Customer unwelfare is a cost of
| business.
| jaccola wrote:
| Asbestos is hard to hide, certainly competitors of the
| Asbestos-using company would know they were using Asbestos.
| They, at least, would have an incentive to advertise how
| bad their competitors product is because it uses Asbestos.
|
| Equally, once it has been established that Asbestos is
| harmful any company using it would be so sued that they
| would quickly cease to exist.
|
| Yes the free market doesn't stop health risks immediately
| but neither does regulation (see: asbestos!)
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| >currently no viable alternative
|
| So false.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Would you tell people your product has asbestos in it, if it
| wasn't regulated that you had to? Of course you wouldn't. And
| then, apparently, you would blame your customer for buying
| it.
| donavanm wrote:
| I don't know if this comment is one of ignorance, or juvenile
| "well actually", but it is _tragically_ misinformed. From an
| Australian perspective all of the big players, CSR, John
| Mansviille, & James Hardy, knew asbestos was a significant
| hazard by _at least_ the 40s. There were early
| epidemiological studies of cancers around asbestos work
| sites, and workers, in the 50s here in NSW. Unions and gov
| health departments start to push back on exposure and seek
| meaningful damages in the 60s and 70s. There were _public_
| campaigns about the dangers in the 70s and 80s. It wasnt
| meaningfully restricted, _and continued to be commonly used_,
| through the 80s. A complete ban, primarily workplaces IIRC,
| wasnt introduced until 2003. The randian wank fantasy of "the
| informed consumer knows best" has been repudiated innumerable
| times.
|
| And, as others have pointed out, this is _not_ an individual
| choice. The families who got asbestosis from washing their
| fathers work clothes didnt make a choice. The bloom of
| cancers for residential suburbs miles around james hardy in
| camellia didnt have a choice. There is no expiration date on
| the dangers of friable asbestos. It remains hidden in the
| common environment forever, until someone else stumbles on
| it.
| nebezb wrote:
| > Of course the capitalist cares about harming customers, she
| needs to sell to them
|
| https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-
| report/johnsona...
|
| Internal memos from 1970s - 2000s reveal knowledge of
| asbestos traces. Executives, better known as caring
| capitalists, resisted disclosure.
|
| In case you think this isn't a pattern: Purdue and Oxy,
| General Motors and their ignitions switches, DuPont and
| "confirmed animal carcinogen" Teflon, Philip Morris'
| cigarette campaigns, VWs dieselgate...
|
| Each of them found to be suppressing knowledge knowingly
| harming consumers.
| jaccola wrote:
| Yes of course it is in their interest to lie / hide until
| it becomes public knowledge. But regulation has the exact
| same problem (hence why Asbestos was not regulated for a
| long time, same with your other examples).
|
| When it is widely known (and therefore can be regulated) it
| is already too late as it's now in the producers interest
| to cease producing it.
|
| Heavy litigation after the fact can disincentivise the
| lying in the first place. If legislation doesn't not allow
| for this (e.g. because of time limitations) then it should
| be amended.
| derriz wrote:
| All successful markets in history have been regulated to some
| degree. A market requires sellers AND buyers and buyers will
| flock to a market where they're not burdened with the cost
| and expense of having to do their own research and
| investigation before even considering a purchase, never mind
| actually completing a trade.
|
| Completely unregulated markets simply don't scale in terms of
| successful trading - the regulation replaces the work each
| buyer would have to do and thus is actually more efficient
| than having each buyer replicate the work of the regulator.
| This is why they have been out-competed by regulated markets
| in the course of history.
| jaccola wrote:
| So have all unsuccessful markets. I think this says more
| about human power dynamics than the necessity of market
| regulation.
| derriz wrote:
| I don't understand your point - there's no symmetry
| there.
|
| Regulated venues dominate nearly every sphere of trading
| in terms of volume.
|
| They have done this by being more attractive to buyers
| and sellers than unregulated venues - i.e. regulated
| venues have out-competed unregulated venues.
|
| In the market for trading venues, regulated venues have
| won.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > Fossil fuels still kill people, but we don't regulate
| against it
|
| ULEZ, Euro 6, clean air act (both US and UK), there are more
| though.
| jaccola wrote:
| You are correct, I meant regulate to ban them.
|
| No doubt when electric cars become better in every way than
| fossil fuel cars, the government will create a regulation
| banning fossil fuel cars. Everyone will rejoice that the
| government stopped those horrible fossil-fuel burning cars!
| Of course, the vast majority of people would have switched
| to the electric cars at this point anyway.
| pac0 wrote:
| > My Dad lost his Dad at the age of 34, which is no age at all in
| the grand scheme of things. By contrast I still have my Dad at
| the age of 60, which has meant an extra quarter century of
| guidance, support, advice, love and always being there. How lucky
| am I?
|
| I lost my father when I was 30. I thought I'd been lucky because
| I'd had him through my "adult" life. Now I'm 40 and have a
| 2-year-old son, and over these past ten years I think it's when I
| would have most liked to have him -- when more questions came up
| about what he was really like as a person, beyond his role as a
| father. He died at 72 from lung cancer; he had been smoking since
| he was 13 and never went to the doctor. I guess I was lucky after
| all...
| irjustin wrote:
| Overall we're having kids later and later myself included. This
| is one of the natural consequences I will face. Sometimes I
| wish it had kids in my twenties but for now I'm glad I didn't.
| We'll see.
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| The best age for having kids biologically, in terms of health
| is... Close to 18. I had my first child when I was 27 and I
| was already very tired in the nights, we agreed with wife
| that it would have been better to start earlier. Some people
| have kids when 35-40 and I cannot imagine it at all. I'm too
| tired right now. Much wiser, but my health would not allow me
| to stay up nights
| seper8 wrote:
| Buddy if you're 27 and already describe your life as very
| tired, there's more going on than pure aging...
| MattRix wrote:
| I mean yeah, that's literally what he's saying: He's
| saying he's very tired because of his children,
| especially how they keep him up at night.
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| no I'm almost twice that. I'm saying that if I had
| children in 40s it would be impossible for me.
| dgacmu wrote:
| We had our first when I was 37 and our second when I was
| 43. It wasn't so bad - it's tiring but I'm also a lot
| more emotionally mature than I was in my 20s and early
| 30s. And I have an absolute ton more money and stability
| (which also helps pay for things like nannies and
| school).
|
| The thing I'm a little sad about is that I'm unlikely to
| be there for too long when my kids have kids.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I dunno, medical science keeps advancing. Maybe you'll
| live forever.
| siva7 wrote:
| Have to agree on this one. That has nothing to do with
| aging at 27 but it's the easy explanation for some people
| to not dig deeper.
| irjustin wrote:
| Biologically yes... Probably but maturity, stability wise
| closer to 30-35 seems to be pretty good. At least the going
| rate amongst my friends
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| That's an environmental factor, though, specifically a
| function of our _modern_ life style.
|
| We had our first child at ~30, so we track this trend,
| too. However, I sometimes think, what if we gave in to
| the biological trend and[0] had kids at 18-20? If that
| were the common trend, then... by the time i got 36, my
| kids would be on their way to starting their own
| families. I.e. my child-rearing day would've been over,
| right here, today. As it is, I'm about to turn 37, and am
| looking forward to some 15 more years of parenting.
|
| No, I really _am_ looking forward to this. But the point
| is, the life _after_ parenting doesn 't sound so
| appealing anymore, not when it starts at 50 instead of
| 36.
|
| --
|
| [0] - Subject to the typical rules about age of
| adulthood, to not overcomplicate this.
| close04 wrote:
| > the life after parenting doesn't sound so appealing
| anymore, not when it starts at 50 instead of 36.
|
| Even if you have kids at 18 you won't be done with
| parenting at 36. Maybe they leave the home, maybe not,
| you will still have to do a lot of parenting for a while
| more. You'll be well in your 40s before you can even
| think "I'm finally mostly done".
|
| At that age it depends on each person what they want to
| do with the life. A lot of my friends who had kids really
| early started focusing on career later in life. Exactly
| what they "missed". Those who focused on career and
| travel when young, focused on kids later in life. I
| haven't heard anyone really regretting the choice beyond
| "my back can't really take it anymore"[0] because you can
| never know what you're missing. You'll never know how
| _your_ life would have been otherwise and what you would
| have liked more or less.
|
| [0] Me, after starting parenthood in my 40s and being
| lazy so my back isn't what it could be.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| If you want to spend time with your kids as adults, and
| have any grandkids remember you, younger is better. I was
| 30 when I had my first child; my parents might have been
| a little older than that when they had me. My dad died 20
| years ago, my oldest son barely remembers him. My younger
| children technically met him but hav no memories of him.
| My mother died over 10 years ago.
|
| My wife's mother had her when she was 20. She's still
| around, got to see her grandchildren reach adulthood, and
| have a long relationship with her daughter as an adult.
| simonsquiff wrote:
| I had my first at 42, second at 45, and about to have my
| third at 48. Honestly it's been fine - thinking that people
| might find this unimaginable is so far from my reality. It
| really feels like I've had the same experience as those in
| their 30s.
|
| Part of this might be that 40s life is a bit more chill
| anyhow - I no longer go and get smashed every weekend, or
| even have the FOMO that I'm not doing that. And work life,
| whilst more junior, was ultimately more extreme in my 20s
| and 30s. So any physical drop is probably balanced by a
| slight drop in general burning the candle at both ends. But
| yeah, don't think 40s parenting is a no go. Go for it!
| nightshift1 wrote:
| My parents had me at 40. I wish they had me sooner. They
| were old and tired for all my life and at 40 my last
| parent is already near the end. I have only known one of
| my grandparents. My parents were the equivalent of other
| kids grandparents. You do you but i think it's selfish.
| cjonas wrote:
| At 18, I had no business even being responsible for a kid
| for a day. I hope the stability (both mentally and
| financially) that I'm able to offer my kid in their
| development years far outweighs the fact I won't be around
| as long.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Close to 18. I had my first child when I was 27 and I was
| already very tired in the nights, we agreed with wife that
| it would have been better to start earlier
|
| I have some extended family who had some unexpected kids
| around that 18 age and I firmly disagree that it's better.
| We had so many more advantages by having kids when older,
| from better emotional regulation to better time management
| practices.
|
| I had kids when older than you. Although some of the early
| years being up late weren't easy, it also wasn't
| devastatingly tiresome. My wife and I split duties and
| staggered our schedules.
|
| The low sleep years were also over very quickly. It's not
| like you're up all night with kids until they're 10 years
| old. Optimizing the entirety of raising kids based on being
| as young as possible to stay up late during the first year
| of life isn't a good idea, IMO. You have to look at the big
| picture.
|
| I'm sorry you're struggling and I don't mean to downplay
| your personal struggles, but at the same time I have to
| agree with other comments that are puzzled at someone in
| their 20s being so crushingly tired when parents in their
| 30s routinely handle child raising. If you have some
| unmentioned condition then I don't mean to belittle that,
| but I don't want others reading these comments to assume
| your description is typical.
| worik wrote:
| I think this depends on social conditions
|
| For some families the women start having children at
| eighten, and it is the business of the extended family to
| provide the "better emotional regulation to better time
| management practices"
|
| Other families have different arrangements and the women
| and men are far more on their own
|
| There are advantages and disadvantages to both ways of
| doing things
| noduerme wrote:
| You gotta do what you can do - take the best of what you
| remember from your parents and grandparents, and pass it on. I
| don't feel like they're really dead as long as I'm alive. I
| hear their voices and their jokes and I see their smiles.
| Sometimes when I laugh I hear how my grandpa laughed, and I
| think, shit, I must sound old now. Kids make you realize how
| temporary we all are.
| tendencydriven wrote:
| Oof, this one hits home.
|
| I lost my Dad when I was 27, he had just turned 60. Also lung
| cancer, also smoking since a child, also had never visited the
| doctor.
|
| In the 5 years since then, I've met the love of my life, gotten
| engaged, and planning a family. All of this without my Dad,
| without his advice, without his support. It hurts, a lot.
| Whenever big moments in my life happen, my first instinct is
| always to give him a call.
| zeristor wrote:
| Dad lost to smoking too at 60, but heart disease. As I grew
| through life I could relate to my memories of him at those
| ages, but as I come up to 60 myself I'm daunted not to have
| my memories of him at later ages as a guide.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| I was 6 when my dad died, next year I'll be the same age he was
| when he died (38). Life's weird.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| Cigarettes are not too unlike Asbestos: they've been known to
| be deadly for ages, but a powerful industrial lobby fought
| ferociously to defend their financial interests, leading to
| millions of preventable death.
| supportengineer wrote:
| Lost my dad when I was 45. That's still too young. Over the
| last 5 years I have missed out on so many conversations with
| him.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I emphasise with your grief. I lost my dad when I was 30 too.
| He died when my wife was pregnant with our first child.
|
| It still cuts me up to think about how my kids have never known
| my dad, and their grandad.
| ls612 wrote:
| My dad's dad died when he was 13, and this dropped his family
| from upper middle class to basically in poverty except for
| owning a fully paid off house. It radically colored his outlook
| on life and left him risk averse and frugal, even to the
| expense of his quality of life. What's the point of saving up
| an 8 figure nest egg and working into your 70s if you spend
| less than 100k/year?
|
| I'm lucky to have him still at the age of 30 but it's clear how
| traumatic losing a parent young is.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > What's the point of saving up an 8 figure nest egg and
| working into your 70s if you spend less than 100k/year?
|
| Leaving your kids better off.
| beachtaxidriver wrote:
| I know some people like that: the insane nest egg and that
| security _is_ their quality of life and the blanket they
| sleep well under. Their current consumption doesn't matter
| too much to them.
| moribvndvs wrote:
| 32 for me, and I agree wholeheartedly. Life was relatively
| simple and uncomplicated for me at that age, and quickly became
| the opposite of that as the years wore on. His wisdom,
| experience, and humor while navigating a world that has gone
| mad is sorely missed, but practical things, too. I'm fixing up
| my money pit of a house (aren't they all, though?) and the
| whole time I am wishing he was here so we could just work on
| projects together.
| aidos wrote:
| It comes up a lot on the diyuk subreddit so they have pinned mega
| thread about it. I like it to give a little balance to the
| conversation.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/DIYUK/comments/133jq4r/the_is_this_...
| Etheryte wrote:
| I don't really think asbestos is something that needs balance
| to the conversation. It's like radioactive material, you will
| most likely not even know that you've had too much exposure
| until your health is already permanently affected. The illness
| may manifest a considerable time later so you might not even
| know what it was. It's very easy to unknowingly be exposed when
| e.g. renovating a house or other similar arrangements because
| there is no easy visual way to identify materials containing
| asbestos.
| Atomic_Torrfisk wrote:
| It absolutely does need balance. Many, if not most older pre
| 1980 houses in (Norway where I live) have some form of
| Asbestos in some form, e.g. Eternit, window putty, jointing
| putty, AIB around fireplaces, or textured paint. Usually
| these materials are fine if left in place, and it is tricky
| to avoid these materials when looking for housing since older
| homes make up a large fraction of our housing stock,
| especially in my kommune up north.
|
| My own house probably contains some Asbestos, but getting an
| asbestos survey is very expensive, prohibitively so for
| people earning the average salary. Not to mention if asbestos
| is found, it is a further expense to get it removed and
| cleaned up. The best I can do is send a sample in for testing
| if I find something risky while renovating myself. Most
| contractors up here do no care at all if something looks like
| it may be ACM.
|
| The best thing we can do for people is to provide balanced
| guidance on where asbestos may be and how much risk does it
| pose. AIB like Asbestolux is way more dangerous than Eternit
| is and depending on the location Eternit can remain in place.
|
| Unfortunately if we were to take a zero tolerance approach it
| would cause more harm than good. How do people pay for
| remediation? do we all abandon our homes? what happens to the
| farmers who cannot move? I have no perfect answer here.
| Asbestos is a hazard no question, but what can we do other
| than common sense and balance?
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| The problem with not taking a "zero tolerance" approach is
| that the problem isn't going to go away. As you say, the
| asbestos including materials are often best left untouched
| rather than being removed by a DIYer which may well release
| the fibres into the air. However, that's just kicking the
| can down the road as at some point the house will need
| renovating or rebuilding and that's when the asbestos
| fibres will be released.
|
| As always, it ends up cheaper to just chuck dangerous
| materials into the wider environment rather than dealing
| with them in a responsible manner. It's a shame that we
| can't retroactively penalise the builders that used so much
| asbestos.
| cts-i-cts-d wrote:
| You can't punish retroactively, Lex retro non agit. It's
| the lawmakers that create the environment we all work
| inside of to maximize our profits. There's probably at
| least 3 as dangerous as asbestos materials used in
| current day and we are yet to find out.
|
| Zero tolerance means paralysis, it's a naive ideal. Look
| at the recent medical technologies where zero tolerance
| for unwanted side effects has to be balanced with
| benefits.
|
| What isn't a trade-off?
| georgemcbay wrote:
| Whether or not specific regulations exist for a
| particular danger, if a company or individual can be
| found to be aware of the negative consequences of their
| use of certain compounds and they don't publicly document
| those dangers they can (in the US anyway) and should
| absolutely be held legally accountable for failure to
| warn.
|
| History is rife with companies/industries who were well
| aware of the dangers they were creating to people for
| decades while actively suppressing the evidence of such
| that they themselves discovered.
|
| Which companies this applies to for Asbestos in
| particular, I couldn't tell you, but it would be shocking
| if there weren't lots of bad actors who knew they were
| bad actors considering there has been research on the
| dangers of Asbestos since 1927 -- nearly a full century
| ago.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| With asbestos, it's not so much a trade-off as it will
| continue to be a possible hazard unless it's disposed of
| correctly. I can relate to a homeowner not wanting to pay
| for testing/removing asbestos ceiling tiles etc. but if
| they don't then any disruption to those tiles can release
| potentially lethal fibres into the air (asbestos doesn't
| have a "safe" dose, so it's not like it can be
| rationalised with "I only made a small hole in that
| tile").
|
| Comparison with medical technologies isn't particularly
| valid as people can choose whether to have that treatment
| or not, but people can't easily choose whether their
| house was built with asbestos or not. If a house was
| already built, then the potential danger is already there
| and we can either deal with it sensibly or not care about
| the deadly consequences of releasing it into the
| environment.
|
| I don't see the logic of not punishing retroactively as
| companies may have made a lot of profit and then pay
| nothing towards the clean-up costs - privatise the profit
| and socialise the costs. The homeowners/tenants are
| effectively being punished retroactively when they may
| suspect/discover that their house contains asbestos, so
| why should the builders (if they are still around) not
| have to pay?
|
| Maybe there should be extra taxes imposed on industries
| with a history of environmental abuse to reclaim some of
| the costs to society.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| The EPA's own documentation states that Asbestos is
| primarily an occupational hazard. If the fibers are not
| embedded in a friable material you will not get any
| significant exposure. Occupational hazards are those
| encountered routinely by someone engaging in an
| occupation. So harvey the homeowner isn't at much
| increased risk if he removes asbestos himself as long as
| he takes precautions and cleans up afterward. It's a
| fiber and a dust not some magic material that soaks in
| through your skin. And obviously don't start a business
| removing asbestos for people without doing the licensing.
|
| Fiberglass batts are really bad to handle too, and same
| with gypsum dust and saw dust from cutting manufactured
| stone countertops. If you do anything indoors you should
| definitely wear a respirator and full sleeves.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| > It's a fiber and a dust not some magic material that
| soaks in through your skin
|
| I feel you're being a bit flippant with the known danger
| of disturbing asbestos containing materials. The dust and
| fibres are typically too fine to be controlled by a
| household vacuum cleaner and will require specialist
| handling to minimise the risk. Yes, the dust isn't
| absorbed through the skin, but instead is breathed in and
| enters the lungs where it causes problems.
|
| You're right about using respirators/masks when dealing
| with dust, but special care needs to be taken with
| asbestos dust and not all dust masks will protect your
| lungs from the dust/fibres.
| bartman wrote:
| In Germany, regulations around asbestos are quite strict:
| You're not allowed to "seal it in" by e.g. putting floor
| leveling compounds on top of old asbestos-containing
| flooring. If there's asbestos found during renovations,
| it needs to be removed professionally.
|
| When we re-did our kitchen we found asbestos-containing
| glue under a new-ish layer of tiles one of the previous
| owners of the apartment just laid on top. I wish
| regulations would already have been stricter back then
| (and that they would have been followed - another
| story...) as this surprise find caused massive delays to
| the construction and forced us to temporarily move out
| during the removal and decontamination.
|
| One of the best ways to make DIY-ing in buildings built
| before 1994 (when asbestos was banned for construction in
| Germany) safe has been to buy a H-filtration class shop
| vac. It can filter out asbestos fibers and many other
| fine dust particles that aren't healthy to inhale and was
| barely more expensive than a comparably good vac.
| Atomic_Torrfisk wrote:
| > problem isn't going to go away.
|
| Yes, that is why when you test positive for asbestos you
| add a little "a" sticker to the material to notify anyone
| in the future.
|
| I think you are missing the point. Many people like
| myself want to take care of it, and would hire a proper
| crew to take care of it, but we are not wealthy enough to
| just call in a crew without some financial planning. This
| is not just an annoying expense, quite a bit more than
| that.
| Atomic_Torrfisk wrote:
| > retroactively penalise the builders that used so much
| asbestos
|
| It is not the builders fault, they did not know, but the
| manufacturers of ACM did for decades! and they were
| penalized. Most were forced to set up trusts to cover
| certain expenses in the US, but I am not sure what their
| scope is.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| > Usually these materials are fine if left in place
|
| Maybe in Norway you need to tell people to chill over it.
| But the current attitude to asbestos in DIY spaces in the
| US/UK is far away from that, and a lot closer to "yea go on
| just tear it out yourself, you'll be fine if you put on an
| n95 and spray some water first".
| ghtbircshotbe wrote:
| I think the dominant attitude in the US is to stick your
| head in the sand. Tons of older homes have asbestos yet
| almost zero of them report it in their listing or their
| disclosure report. If you test it and find it you have to
| report it. If the buyer tests it and finds it, the seller
| doesn't want to know because then they'd have to report
| it. Somehow knowing the house has asbestos lowers it's
| value significantly more than willfully not knowing +
| almost certainly having it anyways.
| thinkharderdev wrote:
| Happened to me. Bought a house with wood floors in the
| basement. We had some flooding which ruined the wood and
| when we ripped it out to replace, turns out the wood
| floors were installed over the original asbestos tiles.
| From what I can tell, the asbestos tiles themselves were
| of no particular danger to us, but once they got wet and
| started cracking they had to be removed which cost an
| additional couple thousand dollars on top of replacing he
| floors.
| mrbombastic wrote:
| Yes because proper asbestos removal is very costly and
| people don't want to deal with it, your house is going to
| look like the government coming for ET. Very tempting for
| a singular homeowner to just read up and rent some
| ventilation equipment and rip it out themselves on the
| down low even if dangers are very real. There are some
| old mental asylums in my hometown, beautiful stone
| buildings on massive property, they have been sitting
| vacant and decaying for years because they are full of
| asbestos and no one wants to deal with it.
| Atomic_Torrfisk wrote:
| > current attitude to asbestos in DIY spaces in the US/UK
|
| Nope, same attitude here.
| jojobas wrote:
| Unlike radiation, there's no safe asbestos exposure, if
| you're really unlucky a single strand can screw you up. On
| the other hand, of all people having worked at asbestos
| facilities with early 20th century approach to PPE only 20%
| developed mesothelioma and 10% died from it.
|
| Thinking before swinging your drill will get most people safe
| enough not to worry about it.
| FlyingAvatar wrote:
| I don't really buy the comparison. If you're really
| unlucky, you can get cancer from a "safe dose" of
| radiation.
|
| Low exposures of both things are statistically less likely
| to hurt you than large doses. We pick a line to call
| "safe", but completely safety in either case is not
| guaranteed.
| nkmnz wrote:
| There is a natural level of radioactivity which the body
| is used to compensate. Small additional doses of
| radioactivity can therefor be neglected. This is not true
| for stuff like abestos.
| bschwindHN wrote:
| I recently came across this unfortunate promotion for asbestos
| from back in the day:
|
| https://imgur.com/V1QcX7I
| bjobjobjo wrote:
| And I just found this related passage in the Wikipedia article:
|
| > More than 1,000 tons of asbestos are thought to have been
| released into the air following the buildings' destruction.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos
| beejiu wrote:
| It's unfortunate this article is about the UK and Imgur has
| blocked the UK because of the Online Safety Act :(
| sva_ wrote:
| I wouldn't blame Imgur for that, but the UK gov + people who
| elected them/didn't resist.
| beejiu wrote:
| Oh yes, please don't think I was blaming Imgur!
| rwmj wrote:
| All parties supported the OSA (and it's surprisingly
| popular too) because "something must be done [about the
| internet], this is something, so this must be done".
|
| It's hardly the stupidest thing British people have voted
| for in the last two decades, probably not even in the top
| 5.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Well, we didn't exactly vote for the Online Safety Act.
| It was introduced by the Tories in 2023 and despite them
| being voted out in 2024, Labour (Tory-lite) decided to
| push ahead with the implementation of the draconian law.
|
| However, I don't doubt that a lot of the UK would vote
| for such a law as most people have a knee-jerk reaction
| to "won't anyone think of the children?".
| monooso wrote:
| Pray tell, precisely how _should_ we have resisted?
| im3w1l wrote:
| It's ironic that even when the subject is resistance you
| are looking for a master to tell you what to do. If you
| want to be free there must be a choice and for there to
| be a choice there must alternatives. How
| *could* we have resisted? What were our options?
|
| This is not just a theorethical complaint. I think there
| were in practice many different things you (in the plural
| sense) could have done that could have worked adequately.
| Too many things to list here, you can look up how other
| people protested in the past.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| You could protest but then you'd be arrested for
| disturbing the peace.
| thescriptkiddie wrote:
| imgur could simply not comply, they aren't a UK company
| jabl wrote:
| Asbestos was also used as 'fake snow'. Famously the snow scene
| in the 'Wizard of Oz' movie was 100% pure asbestos.
| wewewedxfgdf wrote:
| Plenty of people die from asbestos exposure when renovating their
| house.
| rwmj wrote:
| Our house has an asbestos flue in the bathroom. I'm _very_
| careful never to go near that thing, and never ever to cut
| /drill/attempt to remove it myself. But I wonder how many
| people would never know it was asbestos.
| sgt wrote:
| If you leave asbestos alone it's safe, and if you need to
| drill into it, use shaving cream so that the fibers don't get
| into the air. It's not a big deal if you are careful. But
| don't be reckless - you need to know what you are drilling
| into and do it slowly.
| hanspeter wrote:
| This is an interesting claim.
|
| How many is plenty and what are the sources to back this?
| yanslookup wrote:
| This is not factual.
|
| Asbestos is not kryptonite. One time exposure is not going to
| have short term or long term impact to your health.
|
| There is a lot of FUD around asbestos, check out all of the
| panicked posts on reddit.
| pixl97 wrote:
| This is not factual.
|
| The cancer causing mechanism of asbestos is mechanical. A
| single strand in the wrong place could cut your DNA up. With
| any probabilistic process the more exposure the more chances
| and the greater the likelihood.
| Atomic_Torrfisk wrote:
| Source? Usually it is just tradesmen who worked with it
| directly, or their wives.
| krbaccord94f wrote:
| Designing the way to route amplifiers in aesbesto attic, which is
| one element for compressed exposure to respitory disease.
| zeristor wrote:
| I posted diamondgeezer's blog post on High Street to HackerNews
| some time ago, and he was most bemused by the HackerNews effect
| on his website.
|
| I've also just posted his great article on British Summer Time, I
| would have that would have been more popular;
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45710093
| KronisLV wrote:
| When I was younger, my dad had me help him repair the roof of the
| shed by getting on top of it, putting these sorts of flexible
| sheets over the old corrugated ones (that are made of asbestos
| cement) and driving nails through the top one all the way until
| it'd hit the wood frame underneath.
|
| Now, asbestosis is more common in long term exposure so it
| _might_ be fine, but not bothering to tell me to wear a
| respirator and the ignorance after I brought it up years later
| makes me disgusted. So now I have to wonder whether decades later
| I 'll have complications without clear ways to address them.
| bartvk wrote:
| By now, the dangers of asbestos are well known. What was his
| reasoning about being ignorant?
| KronisLV wrote:
| His reasoning, the way he told me, was that:
| 1. driving nails into it won't release as many particles as
| cutting or similar activities would 2. the fact that
| there's a flexible sheet on top of the asbestos one means
| that the only exposure would typically be through the created
| hole through which the nail is being driven, or the sides of
| the sheet, so it should be sealed off enough anyways 3.
| since the activity took place in fresh air instead of
| indoors, the wind (even though there wasn't much of it)
| should take care of any particles that are left
|
| I get the reasoning, but at the same time, it's bad that he
| made that judgement call himself and couldn't be bothered to
| tell me. Like, at least give me the information and give me
| the choice on how to proceed, I would have much preferred to
| wear a mask instead. It's a bit like riding a bike, helmets
| are there for a good reason, even if the choice whether to
| wear them is (or should be) yours.
| bartvk wrote:
| Yup, agreed. His reasoning is sound except the choice
| should be yours. I have the feeling that the older
| generation is a bit more callous with safety and health.
| The comparison with motorcycles is apt, because I've read
| about similar generational issues in the motorcyclegear
| subreddit.
| gausswho wrote:
| The reasoning does seem... reaaonable. But in this case
| it's likely not reasoning but rather its guilt-laden
| doppleganger: rationalization after the fact. Very common
| in my family, especially the confident/proud ones,
| including myself.
|
| I try to recognize when I realize I'm doing it, stop,
| apologize for the deception that it is, and commit to more
| sincere communication.
|
| Alternatively, regularly informing your family of each
| infinitesimal danger in this world is a path to neurosis or
| estrangement. There is a balance, and in some cases non-
| disclosure does feel the right path (to me).
| enricotr wrote:
| Even if OT, I would take the chance to remember the great
| sicilian hacker Asbesto, that I never had the honour to know
| personally, for what represented for the hacker culture in Italy.
| And for his aweson woodcraft mastery. May R.I.P.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| To believe that governments as recent as the first Trump
| administration wanted to protect the asbestos industry:
| https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-administration-p...
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > The company mined asbestos-bearing rock at several sites in
| South Africa
|
| "In South Africa" is not very specific.
|
| it seems to have been firstly in this remote in the remote
| Northern Cape where "The mine eventually became the largest
| crocidolite mine in the world" :
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koegas_mine
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos_Mountains
|
| It predictably wasn't consequence-free at that end either, see
| the later parts of article. And many other sources, e.g.
| https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2001/sep/15/weekend...
| fidotron wrote:
| Relatedly, Asbestos used to be a place:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val-des-Sources
|
| Attempts to reopen the mine and sell asbestos to the developing
| world under a new brand caught the attention of the Daily Show
| leading to some train wreck coverage that ultimately led to them
| changing the name of the town.
| wincy wrote:
| One thing I think most Western people don't realize, especially
| with how terrified we are of asbestos, is that it is still used
| and being mined today!
|
| Russia still extensively uses Abestos, the name literally comes
| from the Russian town of Asbest which is known for exporting, you
| guessed it, asbestos, to countries like China, India, and Brazil.
| Of course being Russian they also say it's a Western lie that
| Asbestos causes lung issues. (I shouldn't have to say this but
| I'm noting this, and not advocating it's true, asbestos is
| serious business and I wouldn't want to live in a building with
| it, it's just interesting that BRICS nations still use it).
| meindnoch wrote:
| As they say, the main export of Russia is suffering. Both
| figuratively and literally.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy3piCUPIkc
| Ray20 wrote:
| Isn't asbestos used pretty much everywhere in the world
| (except rich countries)?
|
| So yes, it's dangerous. But it's very cheap, and poverty is
| far more dangerous than asbestos. It's simply a fact:
| residents of most countries simply can't afford a 200k
| dollars asbestos-free house, like Americans or Europeans can.
|
| If Americans had less affordable homes like the rest of the
| world have, they would still be building them out of
| asbestos.
| jabl wrote:
| Not using asbestos is not the reason why homes in the
| Western world are expensive.
|
| https://aiobs.org/how-healthy-and-costly-are-the-most-
| used-i... shows insulation cost for a (typical?) 1500sqft
| (~140m^2 for the rest of the world) home. The most common,
| and also the cheapest, type of insulation being fiberglass
| bats at $560. So if this home would cost $200k, that's 3%
| of the total price. So even if asbestos would be free, it
| would barely move the needle in total cost.
|
| Edit: That $560 looks suspiciously low. Googling around
| some more shows an insulation (incl. installation) cost for
| a "typical" home at around $3500-$4500. In any case, a
| small fraction of the total cost of a house project.
| bruckie wrote:
| $560 out of $200k is 0.3%. $4500 out of $200k is 2.3%.
| Either way, yeah it's a small fraction.
| bbarnett wrote:
| A gentle note to anyone reading, fiberglass insulation
| requires wearing air filters, for the same reasons noted
| else in this thread. Wear them expecially to cut it, but
| also just putting it up or working in a crawlspace with
| it.
| jrmg wrote:
| That's not what the manufacturers of modern glass fiber
| insulation would have you believe. Plenty of people
| cutting and handling it with no PPE at all in their
| promotional literature.
|
| https://www.owenscorning.com/en-us/insulation/pink-next-
| gen-...
| gruez wrote:
| >the name literally comes from the Russian town of Asbest which
| is known for exporting, you guessed it, asbestos
|
| Seems incorrect.
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/asbestos
|
| Etymology
|
| From Old French abestos, from Latin asbestos, itself from
| Ancient Greek asbestos (asbestos, "unquenchable,
| inextinguishable"), from a- (a-, "not") + sbennumi (sbennumi,
| "I quench, quell").
| morkalork wrote:
| More likely the town is named after the material, there's an
| Asbestos in Canada as well. I always get a kick out of cities
| named like that: Cobalt Ontario, Uranium City, for example.
| simonlc wrote:
| They renamed the town, it's called Val-des-Sources now.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| This is false actually. asbestos is banned in Russia in
| residential flat construction (unless it is fully isolated so
| that it doesn't get inside the space) exactly because it is bad
| for your lungs. There's limits on how much asbestos can be in
| the air safely and thry are pretty low
| orbital-decay wrote:
| Eternit (asbestotsementnyi shifer) is absolutely everywhere
| in Russia, even if banned in residential construction, so the
| exposure chance is still pretty high.
| blub wrote:
| In Europe, Eternit as a brand of fiber cement still exists,
| but they replaced the asbestos with something else.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| It's still in use today,all over the world in industrial and
| laboratory equipment. Many countries also do mine it.
|
| What that Russian city is alone is in ignoring safety
| requirements and mining it like people did in the 90s.
| cgh wrote:
| When I was nine years old, we moved to an asbestos-mining town
| for about a year and a half. Sometimes dust settled on our
| house when they were blasting up at the mine site. It's closed
| now and the road into town was decommissioned. It's a remote
| place to begin with but I still hear of people making the trek
| to get in there.
| userbinator wrote:
| There is this very interesting study on workers of the still-
| active mine in Asbest, well worth a read:
|
| https://asbest-study.iarc.who.int/
| RobGR wrote:
| I would appear that you can buy it on Alibaba:
|
| https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?tab=all&SearchText=asbe...
|
| I have not tried, although I was tempted just out of curiosity
| -- would it make it through customs and get delivered to me in
| the US ? The rope and fabric style products should not be that
| dangerous because they are long fibers that should not break
| off and float in the air, and the cylinder head gasket material
| is probably chopped short fibers but it's embedded in a matrix
| of other stuff.
|
| We probably over regulate the long fiber stuff. The short felt-
| like fibers we used to mix into plaster, cement, anything
| needing strength and texture, are probably correctly banned;
| the risk to reward seems not worth it. Many of those products
| could use glass fiber just as well.
|
| However, I think the general experience of people exposed to
| rock or cement dust, basically anything silica based that gets
| into the lungs, is that is really bad. Handling short chopped
| mineral fiber of any type seems like something that has to have
| a huge payoff, like part of a rocket for satillite launches, to
| be worth it.
|
| This is good to keep in mind because there are some really
| interesting alternative mineral fiber products out there.
| Basalt fiber in particular, is sold in a chopped mix for adding
| to concrete, seems potentially bad. There are some interesting
| ceramic fibers available too.
|
| https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?tab=all&SearchText=basa...
|
| https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?tab=all&SearchText=cera...
| userbinator wrote:
| Even _cotton_ dust is bad if you breathe enough of it:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byssinosis
| bigrex wrote:
| Connect and die
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| I had a garden shed with an asbestos roof when we moved in - the
| first renovation was to get rid of it entirely.
| truelson wrote:
| The ending is in praise of dads. Wonderful. I lost my dad when I
| was 8. I still miss him every day. It's hard to know beforehand
| how cool it is to watch your kids grow and change. I hope I get
| to see how cool my kids are in their old age.
|
| Here's to workers rights and living longer.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, but my parents and my whole
| extended family are from an area in eastern Michigan, about 2
| hours north of Detroit.
|
| Especially back then, the local economy was heavily dependent on
| Dow Chemical, who has a massive facility in the area. My
| grandfather worked there. He was one of the first people to ever
| handle Saran wrap. He also recalls hilarious stories, like a time
| when someone pranked the foreman by dumping some stuff in the
| soap dispenser that turned into a sticky, snotty goo when exposed
| to water. He also worked in an area that used lots of iodine for
| a couple years. His whole body was sunflower yellow when he came
| home from work, but he says he never got a cold!
|
| Some stories are more harrowing. There were air raid sirens to
| warn people when Dow was venting something into the atmosphere.
| If you heard the sirens, you went inside ASAP.
|
| And then there was the dioxin plant (aka agent orange). He says
| men in their 40s who worked in the dioxin plant looked like they
| were in their 80s. Many hard-working people died young there.
|
| Luckily, he was never in the Dioxin plant on a daily basis - he
| was a diesel mechanic and a welder. Had he been in the dioxin
| plant, he probably wouldn't be alive today to share those
| stories. I fear that, as this generation leaves us, so will the
| cautionary tales.
|
| https://www.michiganlcv.org/case/no-compensation-victims-tox...
|
| https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/midwest/2023/01/30/705...
| exasperaited wrote:
| > I fear that, as this generation leaves us, so will the
| cautionary tales.
|
| Cautionary tales that are not being learned where the similarly
| dreadful silicosis is concerned; there is an incredible
| increase in the number of cases of silicosis among kitchen
| fitters working on granite worktops.
|
| (I fear we may also find this issue among people working near
| 3D printers using glass and carbon-fibre-filled filaments.)
| sroussey wrote:
| In college, some times a kid would go pass out in his car
| rather than drive, and people would Saran Wrap the car so they
| couldn't open the doors to get out.
| grogenaut wrote:
| just open the window and cut it with your keys?
| sroussey wrote:
| Yep! But it takes a while to figure that out.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| Dioxin is nasty stuff, but Agent Orange was more than just
| that.
| rudimentary_phy wrote:
| I was very young, but I remember my grandfather was very afraid
| to retire from the steel mill where he worked most of his life
| because those who retired tended to get cancer shortly after and
| die. Sure enough, a little over a year after his retirement, he
| got a cold that wouldn't go away, and was diagnosed with cancer
| and died not too long afterwards.
|
| I've wondered for a long time (based entirely on anecdotal
| observations) whether some forms of cancer and other illnesses
| arise more quickly from sudden shifts in daily habit. Sometimes
| it actually does seem to me like the episode in the Simpsons
| where Mr. Burns thinks he is invincible.
| LambdaComplex wrote:
| Were all the retirees retiring at a certain point? E.g. 20
| years after starting
| PlunderBunny wrote:
| My father was a University teacher, and he would get a cold
| regularly between terms - as if the body knew that it couldn't
| 'give in' until the work period was over.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| > I've wondered for a long time (based entirely on anecdotal
| observations) whether some forms of cancer and other illnesses
| arise more quickly from sudden shifts in daily habit.
|
| My suspicion here is that a lot of your grandfather's
| colleagues "felt the need it was time to slow down and enjoy
| life" could actually have been the beginning stages of some
| chronic illness. But that's just a guess.
| olologin wrote:
| My mother died from pancreatic cancer 5 months ago when she was
| 55 years old, 9 months after she started noticing pain and
| doctors started investigating it. The worst thing is that she
| never worked in any hazardous environments, never smoked, never
| drank alcohol, avoided fried cuisine, avoided GMO-food, she was
| always eating as much as possible from her own garden, did not
| use any chemicals, she wasn't obese, she didn't have diabetes,
| she didn't have any problems with pancreas or any other
| significant health issues. None of her close relatives had
| cancer. For the last 30 years she lived in a very clean region
| that doesn't have any industrial factories/manufactures.
|
| The only possible hazard she had - she worked for 15 years near
| busy road, where there was a lot of diesel/gas engine exhaust,
| but I doubt this is related to her pancreatic cancer, as I found
| normally this affects lungs/respiratory paths. Maybe she was
| exposed to some agricultural chemicals in her childhood, because
| she was living near agricultural fields in the Soviet Union, but
| I doubt she was significantly exposed to it.
|
| I even joked with her that she was living probably the most
| cancer-cautious life, and still got cancer. So the worst thing
| for her is that nobody could tell what she did incorrectly to get
| this illness. It felt very unfair for her.
| exasperaited wrote:
| My sympathies for what must be just an awful time for you ---
| sporadic pancreatic cancer is just a lurking evil.
|
| My mother died of an unusual form of it, just a little older
| than yours, when I was in my early twenties. It was terrible.
|
| The only unusual thing was some prior surgery near her
| pancreas, from twenty years earlier, had apparently had severe
| scarring that was noticed during surgery to fit a stent.
| margalabargala wrote:
| > avoided GMO-food, she was always eating as much as possible
| from her own garden
|
| Depending where she lived, this may have been the cause.
|
| Plenty of people unknowingly live and grow food in areas that
| had toxic waste dumped on them a century ago, and it's still
| there in the dirt.
|
| GMO food, in addition to not being any worse for you than non-
| GMO food, generally gets grown in places that have always been
| agricultural land.
| worik wrote:
| > grown in places that have always been agricultural land.
|
| Living in New Zealand they are often the most polluted.
|
| Agri industry is, and was always, very lax about disposing of
| the extremely toxic chemicals in use
| cycomanic wrote:
| I remember when I was living in Melbourne I read a story about
| the Wunderlich factory which operated in the suburb of sunshine.
| Supposedly they left their wast just sitting in the yard (which
| was very centrally located so people would commonly cut through
| it). The local kids loved playing in the dusty stuff and on windy
| days it was apparently like a snowstorm. The factory operated up
| until the 80s, it is hard to believe.
| userbinator wrote:
| It must be mentioned that this is about _blue_ asbestos, or
| crocidolite, which is the most dangerous form of asbestos, but
| was relatively rarely used and the first to be banned. White
| asbestos (chrysotile) has a much lower risk[1], far more
| widespread use, and there are still active chrysotile mines in
| Russia and China.
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3581056/
| moribvndvs wrote:
| Great article to reinforce my unease at finding asbestos tiles
| while remodeling a bedroom.
| worik wrote:
| In New Zealand the consolidation of much agri business left many
| huge buildings vacant throughout the rural back country and in
| industrial suburbs
|
| They would be fabulous, many of them for repurpossing, but
| because asbestos it is financially impossible to do anything with
| them.
|
| So they rot. Some burn, which I imagine releases the asbestos
| into the atmosphere
|
| It is such a waste
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