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The superintendent of Philadelphia's public schools recently
announced that the city has spent more than 550 million to reduce
the hazards from asbestos in the schools and expected to spend
about 58 million more annually for the next few years. The city
short of money for many essential services, hopes to have the
federal government foot the bill for the asbestos work.
It
is a sad story, but one with a happy ending as well be seen.
One
of the saddest parts about the story is that the work done so
far on asbestos could have been done more safely for all concerned,
for about one-tenth of what the schools district has been paying.
The
gross overcharges resulted from the fact that the general public
knows very little about asbestos. News reports scared the daylights
out of many people with the false assumption that school children
were in grave danger of lung cancer from asbestos in the schools.
They are not.
No
one questions the fact that concentrated prolonged exposure to
asbestos dust can cause cancer and other serious lung problems.
But the excessive cost of cleanup could have been avoided if more
facts had been known.
First,
asbestos is a natural product that has been blowing around
in the air and floating along in the world's water supply for
millions of years every adult has breathed in thousands of asbestos
particles and swallowed many thousands more in drinking water.
These particles of asbestos made it into the air by wind erosion
of asbestos rock out croppings, and into virtually all the world's
water by erosion of asbestos rocks in the rivers and under ground
aquifers.
For
example, tests a few years ago showed that the municipal water
supply in Baltimore contained about 50,000 microscopic particulars
of asbestos per quart, while a natural spring, which had been
used near Baltimore since George Washington drank from it, contained
over 200,000 particles of asbestos per quart.
True,
these particles of asbestos are all microscopic in size, and if
a hundred thousand of them were pulled together they would make
a pile about the size of a fine pin point, but there they are
and there they always will be offering mute testimony to the fact
that the human race was designed to handle safely, minute amounts
of asbestos.
The
enormous exposures to asbestos dust that used to be encountered
in mines and in factories making asbestos products- such as brake
linings for cars and trucks - are an altogether different matter.
These exposures were a billion or a trillion times as great as
those found in Baltimore's water supply or in the most poorly
maintained schools, they simply overwhelmed the human body's mechanism
for disposing of asbestos.
Asbestos
is one of the most stable substances known to science. It
cannot be burned, does not evaporate and cannot be absorbed or
excreted by the body. Once it is in the lungs in gross amounts
it simply stays there and can react synergistically with other
materials, such as carcinogenic substances in tobacco smoke to
cause cancer.
Studies
have shown that asbestos workers who have been exposed to a trillion
or so times as much asbestos as has ever been found in any school
and who smoke are four or five times as likely to develop lung
cancer as those who have similar exposures to asbestos but who
do not smoke.
These
facts about the presence of asbestos in all air and water are
not meant to throw a new scare into the public. On the contrary,
they should be reassuring. Asbestos is a part of the dust of
the ages, which has been covering up ancient cities for countless
centuries. And when asbestos is covered with other materials it
is as harmless to the human race as if it had never been taken
from the original rock in which it was formed.
So
it is with asbestos in the schools. As long as it is kept covered
by a coat of paint or a plastic film it is absolutely harmless.
Consequently, what is needed in the schools is not an expensive
program to identify and remove asbestos but a common sense program
to make sure that all installations containing it are not allowed
to become frayed and dusty.
It
is not necessary to carry out expensive, complex tests to determine
whether asbestos is contained in any one place. Frayed and dusty
surfaces should just receive a fresh coat of paint.
If
this is done, children will be exposed to much less asbestos in
school than they would be in their own homes, or in public and
private buildings where they will later work. Most buildings constructed
during the past half-century contain at least some asbestos because
the building codes nearly always encouraged the use of it to reduce
fire hazards. These buildings are not engaged in any expensive
testing and asbestos removal program and they should not be because
the simplest and safest thing is to keep any asbestos covered
up.
The
happy ending to the generally sad story is that while Philadelphia
plans to ask the federal government for money to support its expensive
asbestos program, the federal government is also short of funds
and is not likely to come up with the money.
So get out the paint brushes.
- P. J. Wingate
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