The schoolroom asbestos abatement program: a public policy debacle

Abstract

It is estimated that nearly $100 billion has been spent on removal of asbestos-bearing materials from schoolrooms, public and commercial buildings, and homes. This removal continues to this day despite the publication of an advisory document in 1990 by the US Environmental Protection Agency that states most removal is unnecessary and is even counterproductive both in terms health protection and costs. Concern over low exposure to substances that are designated as carcinogens is based on the false concept that even the smallest exposure to such substances can increase cancer risk. The expression “one molecule of a chemical or one asbestos fiber can possibly produce a tumor” is repeated over and over until it is accepted as a truth. Over 1400 air samples taken in 219 North American school buildings show the average fiber level to be 0.00022 fibers per milliliter of air. Using the most pessimistic models and attendance in the school for 6 h a day, five days a week, for 14 years, the calculated risk is one excess cancer death per million lifetimes. In contrast, the risk of dying from a lightning strike is 35 deaths per million lifetimes. Ambient air asbestos concentrations measured in the chrysotile asbestos mining towns of Quebec are 220 to 2200 times greater than that measured in the average schoolroom, yet the women living their entire lives in these towns show no increased cancer risk. The asbestos abatement program in the United States is a public policy debacle.