From: Douglas Greville (dgrev@ruralnet.net.au)
Date: Fri Jan 17 2003 - 21:04:47 PST
Jon
> You need to remember where the majority of these cases come from.
Maybe maybe not. My Dad died of Mesiophylanoma(sp?) he was a carpenter.
Out here they used it in "Fibro" which is a wall cladding, both for
wet areas (bathrooms etc) and exterior.
The doctors told him it could have been caused by exposure at any time,
not by gross exposure.
In the last couple of years we have lost 2 Electrical Contractors
locally, (town of 19,000 people) with 22 full time Electrical
Contractors, both to asbestos induced stomach cancer. All switchboards
made in Australia until roughly 6 years ago were made out of a
black bitumous like material with asbestos through it. Nobody knows
whether it was from drilling fibro to install power points etc or
from drilling the switchboards to fit fuses etc that got them.
A former girlfriend of mine's father was an accountant, but he had
asbestos exposure in the Western Desert (Egypt) in the Army during
WW2, he died of it in the 1970s. Nothing to do with ships either.
Oh, year, as to when it was discovered to be dangerous; the Doctors
told us that the health effects of asbestos were documented from the
1890s in English medical literature. That's nearly 100 years before
the common person was told it was dangerous........... draw your
own conclusions as to why it took so long for the information to
get out.
As far as car brakes are concerned, the local auto parts place gave
me a choice of disc brake linings for my Ford,
1) cheap asian import = asbestos
2) the current Aussie type, average cost = asbestos,
3) Asbestos free, premium cost (roughly triple).
You can guess that I took option #3.
In short, have as little to do with it as you possibly can.
Personally I am paranoid about the stuff, I have seen what it does
to a human being and only one word describes it - ghastly.
Regards
Doug
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