An Overblown Asbestos Scare?

By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK

Lurking in ceiling tiles and insulation, wrapped around heating pipes and boilers, asbestos -- that once beloved fireproof mineral, now dreaded as a carcinogen -- is virtually everywhere in American buildings. Communities and companies around the country have been spending millions of dollars in a race to remove the lethal stuff. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that at least 733,000 public and commercial buildings and up to 45,000 of the nation's 100,000 schools contain asbestos in a potentially dangerous condition. While the cost of removing it could reach hundreds of billions of dollars over the next few decades, failure to do so would expose millions of children and other citizens to the prospect of an early, painful death.

Or would it? According to a report in last week's Science, the asbestos "crisis" is grossly exaggerated, and the public would do well to save its dread and its dollars. Says Brooke Mossman, a cell biologist at the University of Vermont College of Medicine and the lead author of the report: "Low-level exposure is not a threat to human health. The scare is unprecedented, and the amount spent on asbestos removal is ridiculous." In fact, say Mossman and her co-authors, removal often puts more asbestos into the air than was there in the first place.

The scientists agree that airborne asbestos can be deadly. It is a proven cause of mesothelioma, an incurable cancer of the membranes surrounding internal organs. It also causes asbestosis, a choking stiffening of the lungs, and it has been linked to lung cancer. Yet nearly all cases of asbestos- related disease have been confined to people who mined the mineral or those who worked with it in manufacturing or installation jobs. As for the general public, says Mossman, the level of exposure even in buildings with flaking asbestos is no more than 1% of the level deemed safe for workers.

The researchers note that some sorts of asbestos are far more dangerous than others and that the safest type is used almost exclusively in U.S. buildings. The bottom line: the risk of dying from smoking, drowning, airplane crashes or even playing high school football is 100 to 1,000 times as great as the risk of dying from asbestos exposure in buildings. "We have known this for two years," complains Mossman, "yet I can still pick up a newspaper that says it's a problem."

The public's fears have been fueled in part by EPA regulations that require school officials to inspect buildings for flaking asbestos every six months, notify parents if it is found and make every effort to contain or remove the material. "The law implies that they must do something about it, and that is not always right," says Mossman.

Government officials acknowledge that the scientists have a point. Says Charles Elkins, director of the EPA's office of toxic substances: "I would agree that in many cases removal is the wrong thing to do. It is a mistake for people to overreact. But it is also a mistake to say that asbestos is not a problem." In some situations, he says, simply blocking off an area or coating the damaged material with chemical sealants may do the trick. But asbestos insulation should probably be routinely removed from pipes in hallways, for example, to prevent passing children from dislodging it.

The Science authors do not oppose all asbestos removal, but they contend that it should be done only when the level and type of airborne particles are clearly hazardous. Given the cost of asbestos removal -- $20 or more per sq. ft., or 100 times the price of installing it -- that argument should be a weighty one for policymakers.

With reporting by Andrea Dorfman/New York