Charters: You are not alone in the "chrysotile is safe" camp. Some troublemaker called John Bridle is saving individuals and companies thousands to even hundreds of millions of dollars in costs.
This was in the daily telegraph today,
"No ceiling to the asbestos scam"
Next week, while MPs are still on holiday, the Government plans to rush through the most expensive law in our history, imposing costs on businesses of billions of pounds.
telegraph.co.uk
You need to register. I found an earlier article elsewhere by a google search. It's by the same author. "Christopher Booker's Notebook"
Eighty-five per cent of asbestos in Britain is white asbestos cement, commonly used for roof tiles and other products, which has never been shown to cause a single case of mesothelioma or any lung disease. In recent years, however, a powerful lobby has grown up, abetted by the Health and Safety Executive and the European Commission, to confuse white asbestos with the dangers linked to amphiboles - the blue and brown forms of asbestos. Science has gone out of the window so far in promoting this scare that even the British Government recently admitted in a briefing note to MEPs on forthcoming EU legislation that "there is strong evidence that both EC directives and HSE regulations on this issue are based on flawed research". Among the beneficiaries of this confusion are two multinational firms which dominate the market in asbestos substitutes; and the 700-odd firms of contractors licensed by the HSE to specialise in asbestos removal, mostly members of the Asbestos Removal Contractors Association (Arca). Stories have poured in from all over the country of how householders, businesses and local authorities are now being asked to pay way over the odds for asbestos-related building works, often based on confusing white asbestos with amphiboles. No one has done more to flag up this scandal than John Bridle, an experienced South Wales surveyor and qualified chemist, who has had top-level meetings with the HSE to warn them of the Frankenstein's monster they are unleashing. Among dozens of examples he has come across as a consultant, he cites the public library which, when two white asbestos ceiling panels were damaged, was quoted £100,000 by an Arca firm for removing the entire roof. The panels were legally replaced for less than £100. Homeowners are already being told by surveyors and estate agents that they must spend thousands of pounds on removing asbestos panels or roofing before they can sell their houses, although in most cases this is either wholly unnecessary or could be safely carried out at a fraction of the cost. A senior HSE official recently queried a TUC estimate that the final cost to Britain of disposing of "the asbestos problem" could be a astonishing £80 billion. But it then became clear he had no idea how far some people are already going to cash in on a hysteria the HSE itself has done more than anyone to create. Any reader wishing to consult Mr Bridle on the type of problem highlighted here can do so via jbridle@ whiteasbestos.fsnet.co.uk. (Christopher Booker's Notebook Sunday Telegraph 19/05/2002)
kc3.co.uk
This item came up on the google search too. Mind you I never put much faith on anything a British Politician ever says.
MISTAKEN IDENTITY; Sunday Telegraph 17 March 2002
I was not in the House for the Health & Safety at Work Adjournment Debate but have obtained Hansard for 14 March 2002. As the attached note of my experience shows, I have followed the asbestos issue for 34 years and cannot accept the claim that ‘the entire case against white asbestos depends ultimately on a single study done in the 1980’s.....’
Hansard records that, to support his call for an inquiry, (which OEDA would welcome),
Mr Clifton Brown said -
1) ‘...but Dr Alan Gibbs, a Cardiff histopathologist, discovered from electro-microscopy that no lungs of people who died from mesothelioma contained white asbestos fibre.’
2) ‘He is a medic who has examined lungs, and he has not found that a single death from mesothelioma - the cancer caused by blue and brown asbestos - involved white asbestos.’
I attach the results of E M analysis carried out for Dr Gibbs in June 1998 and repeated in September 1998, after he had published in 1995 that he had not found that a single death from mesothelioma involved white asbestos. On both occasions, chrysotile was found.
The 1995 paper is not in our library nor could the London School of Hygiene provide a reference, so I am writing to ask Mr Clifton Brown if he will very kindly send me a copy.
You will see from the attached letter from Norman Fowler, Secretary of State for Social Services, that in 1982 his department had identified a few mesotheliomas in people ‘who appear to have been exposed to chrysotile alone.’ and ‘the assumption in those cases that have been exposed to chrysotile must be that the mesothelioma has been caused by these fibres.’ ie white asbestos.
The Hansard record also shows that Mr Clifford-Brown later referred to ‘white asbestos cement which is encapsulated’ as ‘not dangerous.’
Norman Fowler’s letter recognises that, before 1982, the claim by the asbestos cement industry that asbestos fibres were locked into the cement had been accepted by his Department, but on checking with the MRC the Minister recognised that cutting and sawing asbestos cement products produced fibrous asbestos dust which could affect anyone in the vicinity even those not actually handling the asbestos.
It is now recognised that drilling, sanding, mitring or even breaking asbestos cement, releases fibres.
There are many similar documents in our archives which we will gladly show to you, to Mr Clifton-Brown and his colleagues. Christopher Booker and John Bridle would also be welcome.
Neither SPAID nor OEDA have received money from Eternit of Belgium or Saint-Gobain of France.
I am making this information widely available.
oeda.demon.co.uk |
