The Great Asbestos Scam

In November 2007 a new book was published in Britain aimed at anyone interested in politics, law or science,particularly anyone concerned for whatever reason with asbestos. Scared To Death: From BSE To Global Warming – Why Scares Are Costing Us The Earth, written by a well-known British newspaper columnist Christopher Booker and his colleague Dr Richard North, immediately raced into the British best-seller list.

Their book’s purpose is to tell the inside story of many of the major ‘scares’ which have been given obsessive media coverage in recent years, from the Millennium Bug to bird flu, from lead in petrol to man-made climate change.

As the authors show, each of these scares has followed a consistent pattern. They centre on some supposed threat to human health or wellbeing based on seemingly plausible scientific claims which eventually turn out to have been vastly exaggerated or wholly mistaken – but which in the meantime have cost Western economies astronomic sums, amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars.

The second longest chapter in the book (exceeded only by its analysis of the panic over global warming) is an unprecedentedly detailed account of the colossal scare whipped up in recent decades over asbestos – a scandal which Christopher Booker has in recent years repeatedly exposed in his column in the London Sunday Telegraph, aided by one of Britain’s leading practical experts on asbestos, John Bridle.

As Booker and North show in their highly readable account, the scare over the dangers posed to human health by asbestos has come about thanks to the promotion of a deliberate confusion between two very different minerals, just because they happen to pass under the same general name ‘asbestos’.

First, it was discovered that the blue and brown forms of asbestos, amphiboles, had caused a major public health disaster, leading to thousands of deaths. But this genuine disaster was then used to demonise a wholly different and much commoner material, white asbestos or chrysotile, which – particularly in its most widespread form, as asbestos cement - has now been definitively shown by leading scientists to pose no measurable risk to human health.
Yet this confusion, now in many countries enshrined in law, has been made the basis for two immense financial scams.

The first, particularly in the United States, has been operated by unscrupulous lawyers, who have won countless billions of dollars in compensation on behalf of ‘asbestos victims’ claiming to have been exposed to asbestos in their work, but who in the majority of cases could show no evidence of injury. This has been described by one leading US academic lawyer as one of the ‘great swindles’ of American legal history.

The second racket is that practised by the new breed of specialist removal contractors, who have exploited the climate of fear and confusion generated around the different forms of asbestos to rip off government authorities, businesses and homeowners for unnecessary removal of asbestos-containing materials, again to the tune of billions of dollars.

When Christopher Booker began to expose this scandal in his newspaper column, he and his adviser Professor Bridle and The Asbestos Watchdog, became the target for a sustained campaign of abuse and disinformation by the powerful ‘anti-asbestos lobby’, supported by all those interests for whom confusion over the science of asbestos is providing such a financial bonanza.

Never before has this disturbing chapter in the social and political history of our time been set out in such comprehensive detail, fully supported at every stage by the citing of relevant scientific and other sources.
That is why the Chrysotile Institute of Canada has arranged with the book’s publishers for the right to reprint the section of the book covering the asbestos story.

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Asbestos Watchdog has secured a number of free copies of "One Fibre Kills"- The Great Asbestos Scam which we are distributing for FREE for a limited time only.

If you wish to have your own copy of this valuable publication, simply send us a cheque for £3.65 (p&p) along with your address to:

J&S Bridle Associates Ltd
Breynton

Twyncyn

Dinas Powys

CF64 4AS

You can also purchase the book in full from Amazon

We hope you will find it not only illuminating and useful but a shocking instance of how science can be systematically perverted to serve commercial ends.

'Asbestos' is not actually just one mineral. It is a generic group name (based on similar fire resistant properties) covering 6 very different minerals. The 3 minerals used most commercially are amosite (brown asbestos), crocidolite (blue asbestos) and chrysotile (white asbestos).

Brown and brown asbestos belong to a group of minerals called 'the amphiboles'. They have short sharp fibres that are capable of staying in the lungs for a very long time. They can be toxic if inhaled in quanitites above a certain threshold and can cause a range of diseases including mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis and pleural plaques.

White asbestos, however, belongs to a very different group of minerals called 'the serpentines'. White asbestos has long silky fibres, that are cleared from the lungs in approximately 15 days and there has never been a proven case of white asbestos alone causing an asbestos related death.

What is also interesting is that over 90% of all asbestos containing materials still found in the UK contain white asbestos alone. Only 10% ever contained the dangerous amphibole types, and it was this 10% that accounted for nearly all the asbestos related deaths.

When making judgements on asbestos containing products, it is important not to fall into the trap of thinking that 'asbestos = bad'. Take aspirins for example. One aspirin can cure a headache, a whole bottle will kill you. Similarly, alcohol is actually legally classified as a class one carcinogen (as is white asbestos), but millions of people will drink it every day.

There is no question that the amphibole (blue and brown) forms of asbestos are hazardous to human health, but just sharing a generic group name with these does not qualify the serpentine white asbestos in the same risk bracket. Independent scientific research shows white asbestos is not even toxic at levels of up to 5000 times the US threshold allowed (Bernstein, et. al, 2006).

Should you require any work on asbestos work on your property, please do not let any companies scare you into thinking that the product in question will 'kill you' or 'damage the safety of your children' (2 common scare tactics). 90% of products will probably only contain white asbestos (chrysotile) and as such are of no measurable risk to your health. If you are told otherwise, the company may be out to make money by conducting the work themselves or gaining commission for passing it to other, licensed, companies.

If anyone has ANY concerns about asbestos related matters, either health related, or to do with the asbestos abatement industry, I really do suggest getting in touch with Asbestos Watchdog UK (http://www.asbestoswatchdog.co.uk) (link on side of this page). They are very helpful and can boast a truly independent perspective.