The cowboy removal of damaged asbestos roofs after the November 2014 hail in Brisbane has created a significant Workplace and Public Health incident.
Asbestos
Benjamin Franklin sold an asbestos purse to a London collector, Hans Sloane, later President of the Royal Society who gave it to the British Museum.
Benjamin Franklin’s asbestos purse
I may have been the first to publish about the ticking time-bomb of Hessian bags used to to transport asbestos, then used to make carpet underlay. Bromwich, D. W. (2006). “The 2005 Australian Asbestos Codes of Practice – An Occupational Hygiene Perspective.” Journal of Occupational Health and Safety – Australia […]
Measuring asbestos in carpet underlay
CBS News in Canada has a disturbinbg video of the use use of Canadian chrysotile asbestos in India. No effective respiratory protection was seen to be used in the dusty workplace where asbestos was spun.
“Canada’s Ugly Secret”
The Health Canada report on crysotile asbestos was recently released after a very long delay. One of the problems with asbestos is that it is two mineral groups, with crysolite being less toxic than the other forms of asbestos.This editorial in The Ottawa Citizen editorial “Immoral exports” on April 21, […]
Canada’s crysotile
I couldn’t resist this one. The super hero Asbestos Lady had the special power of having a fire proof costume. Its from The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson.
Asbestos Lady
What you see is not what you get. The paper: Stayner, L., E. Kuempel, et al. (2008). “An epidemiological study of the role of chrysotile asbestos fibre dimensions in determining respiratory disease risk in exposed workers.” Occup Environ Med 65(9): 613-619.
Asbestos fibre size
A case-control study (622 cases, 1420 controls) by Professor Julian Peto and others and funded by the UK HSE “A Occupational, domestic and environmental mesothelioma risks in Britain” has just been released.