The Evil Dust - the history of asbestos, an excerpt

Pro difficult to maintain believing in what they know to be a truth when millions of dollars are at stake during the last 100 years asb's fibers have been used in thousands of different products in the construction industry in shipyards and in households it was seen as a magic mineral and the use of millions of tons of asbestos created a successful and very profitable industry even though that self-same industry was well aware aare that asbestos was extremely dangerous but despite this awareness the use of asbestos was allowed to develop into one of the biggest occupational health problems of the century leading to thousands of deaths and not only for those involved in its manufacturer but for all who came in contact with [Music] it in big production at a rale plant is a new material likely to play a useful part in fighting fire it's an aluminized as best as [Music] cloth in the safely Open Spaces of oon Park the county firemen got themselves up like Invaders from another planet two gallons of petrol were sacrificed in the good cause and the stage was set for the drama Man versus [Music] fire mankind has always been fascinated by asbest from the early beginnings of its manufacturer in Canada at the end of the 19th century the small mineral fibers of which it's composed have filled people with enthusiasm because despite they being soft as silk they're as solid as granite and can be used in many different applications ASB bestus was promoted uh the sales pitch was to call it that the magic mineral uh they uh mainly were able to sell this because it had very good resistance to chemicals Heat and it had high tensil strength in European and American industrialization ASB bestus was inextricably linked with the potent symbols of progress machines steam ships and large building construction at the beginning of the 20th century the mineral was marketed as lady asbest a Greek goddess armed with a shield to protect civilization numerous factories sprang up and thousands of workers gained employment in the asbest [Music] industry but as in many other Factories at that time working conditions were extremely Dusty we know from the documents that have survived that the conditions were very dusty and there are stories that workers couldn't see more than 6 to 10 ft in certain parts of the factories but dust was an accepted fact of life life in many Industries in those days cotton factories were very dusty the coal mines were were even dustier so asbestos factories were not that unusual in having a dust problem it was just that asbestos was uniquely Dusty and also as it turned out uniquely dangerous as early as 1898 a factory inspector in Britain warned against what she described as the evil dust in Britain the government uh hired a medical inspector of factories and uh under his Direction the lady inspectors of factories went out and did investigations and one of the things that they reported in the year 1898 was that there were people getting uh lung disease from working around asbest and they recognized that this was a dangerous material the lady inspectors actually referred to the evil effects of asbestos [Music] dust at the beginning of the 20th century more asb's connected deaths came to light and as early as 196 a factory inspector in France learned of 50 deaths among female workers in the years to come suspicions grew more widespread leading to American and Canadian insurance companies taking legal precautions to protect against possible claims by 1918 in the United States an insurance industry official published a report describing uh mortality IND Dusty trades and in this report the insurance official said that it was generally the practice of American and Canadian life insurance companies to not sell life insurance to asbest workers on account of the the hazards of their trade based on reported deaths from such causes as tuberculosis and pneumonia yet still no one would admit the full extent of the inherent dangers it finally took the death of a British woman Nelly Kershaw to contribute in helping to unravel the mystery surrounding these dangers with the inquest into her death resulting in a year-long battle over principles of responsibility and compensation Nelly Kershaw was a young woman who worked at Britain's leading asbest company Turner Brothers in Rochdale uh she died in 1924 and it's an important case because it was the first case in which there was an inquest the inquest received extensive coverage in the local newspaper the Rochdale Observer and presented evidence that told her lungs were peppered with numerous minute sharp fibers which had cut directly into her lung tissue causing thousands of tiny scars until eventually her lungs could no longer function and she died of Suffocation the the coroner in charge of the inquest described the cause of death as asbestos poisoning but Turner Brothers the company she'd worked for rejected his findings Turner Brothers never accepted responsibility for Nelly Kershaw's death and basically she was never given any compensation by the company um you must remember that at that time there was no the government compensation scheme had not yet been introduced uced so officially she had a disease which didn't [Music] exist when Nelly Kershaw's Widow asked Turner Brothers for financial support in order to cover funeral expenses his request was flatly refused lest it create a precedent of admitting responsibility thereby encouraging demands from other past or present employees [Music] 3 years later the coroner in charge of the inquest summarized his observations in the British medical journal and during decades to follow thousands of victims would learn the name of their Affliction asbestosis following the publication of the Nelly Kershaw case the British government decided to embark on a survey of asbestosis in to the most heavily exposed workers in the manufacturing plants and this was very uh helpful to the industry from a marketing standpoint because the people who use these products the millions of people in the construction industry and in the shipyards were not covered At All by these [Music] regulations the practical uses of asvestas are very numerous at least 18,000 articles are made of it ranging from pecking for steam engines and ings for friction surfaces to bulkheads for airplanes no not a member of a secret society nor a medicine man but an asbestos shield for firefighting asbestos comes into the home in the shape of fireproof curtains and covers and in a variety of patterns they are one answer to the problem of the careless smoker Ash but no Char if in a playful moment you feel you'd like to make a bonfire of the tablecloth see that it isn't made of asbest simultaneously alongside the development of new products utilizing ASB bestus more reports were published by British Factory inspectors about their suspicions that asbestos also caused lung cancer the American asbest Giant John Manville decided in all secrecy to conduct laboratory research on mice and rats the researcher along the way became curious about cancer and he allowed these animals to live out their full lives and it turned out that nine of 11 of uh these animals in this group developed lung cancer but the companies kept him from publishing that he died in 1946 and uh the new director of the laboratory wrote up the study that uh had been done by his predecessor he included reference to tumors and cancer and the companies who were the sponsors Executive Vice Presidents and presidents of these companies met in the boardroom at the Johns mandoo Corporation in November 1948 and they sent uh back directions to the laboratory take out all reference to cancer and tumors and the author of the study did just that

Channel: Jakob Gottschau

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Id: 5yz4H_7JFQo

Length: 10min 49sec (649 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 16 2013