Nowadays you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who would willingly live in a house insulated with asbestos, but in the early 20th century the material was commonly used for homes, schools, and commercial buildings. Its fire-resistant properties made it seem like a “miracle mineral”; when the building industry boomed in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, asbestos mining became a very profitable business. But as we explored in last week’s post, asbestos is extremely hazardous to human health and can cause a myriad of lung diseases; many countries have banned it entirely. Modern history has plenty of examples of this sort of mistake: people discover a fascinating new material, it becomes wildly popular, and its dangerous side effects are only discovered after the fact. But in the case of asbestos, the health risks were known for a long time before any action was taken, and the scandal is still having an effect to this day.

Early Warning Signs
The Greeks and Romans used asbestos for many different products, fascinated by its flame-retardant capabilities. In the 1st century AD, they noticed that slaves who wove asbestos cloth were stricken with a mysterious illness of the lungs. However, asbestos-related health problems didn’t really become obvious until the material became widespread in buildings during the Industrial Revolution. In the early 1900s, four decades after asbestos manufacturing became a major industry, anecdotal observations began to emerge from doctors in America and Great Britain. When they autopsied asbestos miners and factory workers, they discovered large quantities of the material in lung tissue. In 1924, a British pathologist named Dr. Cooke began to publish case studies of workers who were suffering from an ailment he called ‘asbestosis’: the chronic buildup of asbestos fibers in the lungs. In a later study of 360 textile workers, he found that approximately 25% of them suffered from asbestosis and were at risk to develop several different types of lung cancers.

A Blind Eye and Scarred Lungs
The British government improved asbestos manufacturing regulations in response to the evidence, but United States asbestos industry leaders didn’t get the memo. That isn’t to say that they weren’t warned of the risks: quite the opposite. In fact, American asbestos companies knew fairly quickly that asbestos was dangerous. A life insurance company report from 1933 stated that 29% of employees at one major asbestos corporation had asbestosis symptoms; the same corporation had already circulated internal memos about worker fatalities as early as 1930. In 1932, the U.S. Bureau of Mines sent a letter to another asbestos manufacturer that stated, “…asbestos dust is one of the most dangerous [materials] to which man is exposed.”

The companies turned a willful blind eye to this evidence, and obscured the truth about asbestos for several decades. They settled worker lawsuits on the condition of total silence from both the plaintiffs and their lawyers, and frequently edited doctors’ articles to downplay the danger of asbestos dust exposure. In 1936, several large asbestos companies partnered and agreed to sponsor research on the health effects of asbestos, but retained total control over the disclosure of the results. The companies also removed all references to cancer from sponsored research in 1951. Asbestos use continued through the 1960s and 1970s; it wasn’t until the mid 1980s that public concern about asbestos exposure resulted in federal investigation and widespread action.

Stirring up Dust
After multiple studies and continuing public demand, nations began to take action in the 1980s. Asbestos is now listed as a controlled waste product under international law, and 60 countries have banned its use in whole or in part. In the United States, asbestos is highly regulated, but not banned. Asbestos litigation is one of the longest and most expensive mass lawsuits in American history; more than 8,000 defendants and 730,000 claimants have come forward for compensation. The use of asbestos, even in limited amounts, remains one of the most contentious and viciously debated issues in the building industry today. Next week, we’ll look at the details of US asbestos regulations, and explain what to do if you find asbestos in your home.