EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing • Hacker News Board

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

#251

Post by jakeinthehills9 » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

pwenzel wrote: post #227

spoiledtechie wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a "stated stance"? Show me where? I call BS.

Trump, in his infinite wisdom, said that if asbestos had not been banned, the World Trade Center would never have burned down. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/25865556945865113...

The towers were brought down ("pull=it!") precisely because they were filled with asbestos and because of that it would have been prohibitively expensive to demolish them while staying in the regulations of the time, so they were rigged with explosives and dropped, under the guise of militarizing the oil fields of Iraq. The other thing everyone seems to be missing in this discussion is the fact that asbestos is a stone, a rock, made up of very sharp crystals ("fibers") that don't dissolve in the human body. Ever. Chlorine is broken down and disposed of by the human body, asbestos can not be removed from the lungs. Ever. Once the are there the fibers continually stab and irritate the surrounding cells. Even uranium has a half-life, but asbestos does not. It needs to be eliminated completely from the environment. It is not safe at any level.

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

#252

Post by hfdgiutdryg » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 5:19 PM UTC

nemacol wrote: post #202

dmix wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does say it's only being approved in special cases. I wouldn't expect the building industry to suddenly start using it again. How many of those 3000 are a legacy of the previous eras misunderstanding of the chemical? I doubt any company would ignore that risk and produce a product that put people at a direct and unknown risk, especially given the legal liability since we now know the full risks of the chemical and…

The cases per year are going down and the average age of diagnosis is 69. So you are right in that most of this is legacy. But we know now and knew then that it was dangerous. Much like the radium girls in the early 1900's - where the people delivering the paint would wear leaded protective equipment and then management would watch (and encourage) the girls lick the paint brushes to keep the tip pointed. They knew it…

I'd never heard of radium girls and found this interesting:

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/radium-girls-radioactive-p...

I'm slightly confused why the public at large was ignorant of the danger of radium (and even thought it was healthy), but the radium girl managers knew the danger...?

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

#253

Post by TimTheTinker » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 5:23 PM UTC

rescripting wrote: post #93

xienze wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The danger of asbestos to regular people is way overstated. Yes, if you work around it every day for years without wearing a mask you'll regret it. If it's in your floor tiles and one breaks, you'll be fine.

"all levels of asbestos exposure studied to date have demonstrated asbestos-related disease ... there is no level of [asbestos] exposure below which clinical effects do not occur" https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/81-103/pdfs/81-103.pdf

That is a 1980 pamphlet, not a scientific paper.

OP is right -- there is a lower limit of acceptable asbestos exposure that is not well known. All the asbestos-related mesothelioma cases were from workplace exposure for an extended period (more than two months).

Furthermore, there are two major forms of asbestos that have widely varying effects. Chrysotile has been shown to not be harmful in small doses. (That's the stuff that you'll find in popcorn ceilings installed prior to 1974.)

"Inhalation toxicity studies of chrysotile at non-lung overload conditions demonstrate that the long (>20 µm) fibers are rapidly cleared from the lung, are not translocated to the pleural cavity and do not initiate fibrogenic response." Reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3581056/

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

#254

Post by peterwwillis » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 5:23 PM UTC

gus_massa wrote: post #145

peterwwillis wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your argument is, because people get mesothelioma from living near natural deposits of asbestos, we should put more of the stuff in our homes? "What's a little more cancer?" Your own source material shows just living near asbestos gives you higher risk of cancer. You're trying to argue that we aren't at significant risk without prolonged exposure. Living with asbestos is prolonged exposure. Increasing the amount u…

Smoke detectors have a radioactive source, and we put them inside our homes, because the radiation level is so low that the increase of the risk is minimal. Walls have a tiny amount of radioactive material, but they protect you from the radiation of the exterior. I don't know if the walls increase or decrease your cancer risk. There are many thinks that may cause cancer. It's important to calculate the risk of each o…

If 55 other developed nations can ban use of asbestos, we can too. There's no need to calculate the risk if we can just avoid it entirely. Why poison yourself if you don't need to?

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

#255

Post by hfdgiutdryg » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 5:23 PM UTC

SeanAppleby wrote: post #153

xienze wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, in general, people who become ill from inhaling asbestos have been regularly exposed in a job where they worked directly with the material. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_impact_of_asbestos > Asbestos can be found naturally in the air outdoors and in some drinkable water, including water from natural sources. Even nonoccupationally exposed members of the human population have tens to hundreds of thou…

> Asbestos can be found naturally in the air outdoors and in some drinkable water, including water from natural sources. Even nonoccupationally exposed members of the human population have tens to hundreds of thousands of asbestos fibers per gram of dry lung tissue, equivalent to millions of fibers in each lung. If you're using this as an argument that increased asbestos exposure has no correlation to negative health…

for the sake of making a naturalistic fallacy.

That's not at all what the parent comment did.

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

#256

Post by jakeinthehills9 » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 5:24 PM UTC

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #44

gameswithgo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not unbelievable, it is the stated stance of the GOP to reduce environmental and health regulations, and they are doing it. It is exactly what we voted for.

So, what exactly happened? The EPA was founded by a republican (Nixon). Yet environmental efforts are now attributed to democrats. And combined with that, is that republicans was to destroy the very org they made? What am I missing out of this? Why did the parties completely change their face?

>So, what exactly happened?

The elites enact the laws they want. They are tired of protecting the public's health when there are 7 billion people and the goal of the Georgia Guidestones clearly states a reduction in population is a goal. This is why so many mutagens and pseudo-estrogens are being purposely placed into food and products in order to saturate the environment. The elites believe that mutations create unique and desirable traits (think roses, orchids, dogs and stallions) and in order for the human race to evolve we need to speed up mutations and hybridization. (See also blacked.com) Asbestos isn't going to create the next Einstein, though. I suspect it is being allowed because it is cheap and lots of it exists, so "Why not try to make a profit from it even if it does make some poor people sick? "If they were smart they wouldn't be poor!" The "legislature" is mostly a circus to distract you from the action behind the curtain.

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

#257

Post by chipotle_coyote » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 5:24 PM UTC

prolikewh0a wrote: post #140

wvenable wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 50% of people who didn't vote basically have said, we don't care to choose. So they got exactly what they voted for.

Or they didn't see a viable candidate that represented their interests and decided to abstain. This is a legal right.

Your interests are going to be represented by one of the two major party candidates, whether you like it or not. And even if you're firmly on the side of "do not like," one of those candidates is almost certainly going to be less worse than the other. Maybe you think both of them have authoritarian tendencies, but only one of them openly talks about the press as the enemy of the people and tacitly encourages their followers to demonize and harass their opponents. Maybe you want universal health care and neither of the candidates support it, but one of them talks about shoring up and expanding the Affordable Care Act and the other one talks about repealing it. Maybe you think both of them are too beholden to Wall Street, but only one of them literally lives in a gold-plated penthouse a couple blocks away.

So, sure, it's your legal right not to vote. But it's my legal right to point out that by doing so, you are not nobly opting out of the system -- you're supporting the winner.

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

#258

Post by staunch » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #143

bruinjoe wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so true. We should just ban lobbying because it is only used by rich corporations and individuals.

Lobbying is just a legal form of corruption. Ban it, and it will still continue to exist underground anyway. What we need is to stop voting for idiot politicians.

What about creating a "Direct Democracy Lobbying Group" that lets citizens donate/vote online on issues and then (legally) bribes the appropriate people with total transparency?

The depressing thing about most bribery is how small the amounts of money are. Politicians take bribes in the form of campaign financing because they want to stay in power. It's easy for them to rationalize if they think they're serving the greater good, and many of them would probably prefer to take money from citizens instead.

It seems like one super rich person could fix every level of US politics by implementing a backdoor direct democracy and seeding it with matching donations. If crowdfunding has proven anything, it's that people have more than enough money to spend when they want something.

It's only now that everyone is on the internet that this idea is even possible, and no one has tried it yet.

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

#259

Post by ericb » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 5:26 PM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #241

ericb wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would "should be considered" be more appropriate wording and less hyperbolic? I'm being serious. I think cash contributions for legislation fundamentally subvert our democracy, and my comment was intended to raise that point for discussion. I don't see discussion of the perversion of democracy as unsubstantive.

Not really, no - you need to expand on the why in order to have some sort of substantive discussion (especially when using politically loaded language). Lobbying in its positive form is about experts trying to explain things to representatives that don't understand the specifics of the field. When done right a representative should get perspective from different areas and be able to understand the issues/regulations…

I would argue that the advent of PAC's and Citizens United has more or less obsoleted the positive case--which you're right, I don't object too. What I mean is, if I'm a politician and two lobbyist show up "explaining" if I listen to the one from a PAC with the briefcase full of campaign contributions, in the next election I'm more likely to stay a politician, so there's now a selective pressure toward corruption on politicians. The same goes for promises of lucrative jobs (Ajit Pai). So lobbying in some senses is collapsing toward the lowest common denominator because the "positive form" players have their cards trumped.

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

#260

Post by vkou » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 5:26 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #143

bruinjoe wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so true. We should just ban lobbying because it is only used by rich corporations and individuals.

Lobbying is just a legal form of corruption. Ban it, and it will still continue to exist underground anyway. What we need is to stop voting for idiot politicians.

And while we're at it, let's build the new Soviet man. The USSR only tried doing that for what, sixty years?

Your politicians aren't idiots, they rationally respond to the incentives in the system. What's broken is the system.