• VICE - Why the Deadly Asbestos Industry is Still Alive and Well
    18 replies, posted
[video=youtube;cy3piCUPIkc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy3piCUPIkc&[/video] Pretty interesting, did not know it was still used so extensively around the world.
The city of Asbest is pretty interesting... [QUOTE]if you're not afraid the body will heal itself. [/QUOTE] Can any slavs confirm this power? [editline]19th February 2016[/editline] Another story of how private interests will knowingly kill you unless the government steps in to stop them. These regulatory agencies never get the credit they deserve.
Asbestos is the reason my dad grew up without a dad and I never knew my grandfather :(
Something I didn't realize is that the US still uses asbestos. Huh. [editline]20th February 2016[/editline] To be fair, it makes for a heluva insulator.
I work at a law firm that represents shipyard workers, one of the major groups that was exposed to asbestos. Numerous clients end up with mesothelioma, lung cancer, pulmonary fibrosis, pleural thickening, a ton of really awful scary shit. Viewing the records of clients, many of which contain photos, is simply a harrowing experience. Dilapidated bodies, in some cases close to the kind of photographs you would see of Holocaust victims. The stuff is no joke. Asbestos is still sold in the US today. Various products contain it. On a few cases that I've worked, I've had the pleasure of taking a look at the internal memos and records along with the testimony of doctors who would work for the asbestos injury. While their testimony constantly portrayed confidence (even into the 1990s) that [I]their particular form[/I] of asbestos was not harmful (spoiler: it is), their internal communications and research demonstrate solid, conclusive evidence that they [I]knew[/I] and were further active in hiding information about the harmful nature of their asbestos. They would provide onsite testing services at industry locations with asbestos exposure, and they marketed the shit out of this. They were proud as hell, and then when they'd do the test they'd report that levels were fine. But internally it was clear that the threshold limits for amount of asbestos in the air were far, far lower than they could possibly reach. the process of mining asbestos is simply too hazardous, there'd never be a way to safely produce and sell it, let alone the implications on consumer use. Asbestos companies are disgusting. While it may be sad and unfortunate that their initial mining of asbestos was innocent, once a solid and demonstrable scientific consensus arose that their product was harmful the industry immediately sprang up to refute everything it could. they fought and fought while their employees died. they couldn't admit fault because it'd render them insolvent. but the way it was phrased in this video is accurate. at this point, it's downright disregard for human life bordering on sheer murder. we're not talking something that's a vice, like smoking, alcohol, or food - we're talking about working class men and women, often uneducated, being knowingly exposed without regard to their health. They're taken advantage of, and then the social structure that surround a town reinforces the absence of liability on the employer. this shit is tragic.
all these states are just crippling their people. China's massive disregard for industrial runoff is going to catch up to them once their healthcare system has to deal with hundreds of millions of cancer patients, India will see a massive epedimic of people dying young from these cancers as they lack the infastructure to support people on oxygen, and Russia is going to have generations of health problems from their criminally negligent industries. [editline]19th February 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=nerdster409;49775454]Something I didn't realize is that the US still uses asbestos. Huh. [editline]20th February 2016[/editline] To be fair, it makes for a heluva insulator.[/QUOTE] the uses are extremely limited in scope, and even then ceramics have pretty much superseded all the legacy uses of asbestos.
[QUOTE=nerdster409;49775454]Something I didn't realize is that the US still uses asbestos. [/QUOTE] Its banned federally but obviously something so prevalent is still around.
the other day i found an extremely old packet of Asbestos fake snow. tossed that shit like it was anthrax. looked like this: [t]https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3401/3562946987_e9c1dfc78b_b.jpg[/t]
Asbestos is a good material for making brakes for motorized land and air vehicles. The company mining and distributing it is fucking horrid. No concern for health or safety. Just give the workers hazmat suits, put a big cover or ventilation system up for the mine, and just balance it out. You won't lose a dime. No need to panic either, just handle the material with caution and keep a safe distance. That's it.
[QUOTE=BrickInHead;49775737]I work at a law firm that represents shipyard workers, one of the major groups that was exposed to asbestos. Numerous clients end up with mesothelioma, lung cancer, pulmonary fibrosis, pleural thickening, a ton of really awful scary shit. Viewing the records of clients, many of which contain photos, is simply a harrowing experience. Dilapidated bodies, in some cases close to the kind of photographs you would see of Holocaust victims. The stuff is no joke.[/QUOTE]Yeah my grand-uncle has mesothelioma from working in steel mills back when it was used to insulate the factories, my grandmother saw him a few months ago and said he weighed like 100 pounds and was very weak, wouldn't eat, just looked terrible,. His kids got him some cannabis pills though and boy did they ever work, he was eating, he was working, he gained about 60 pounds back, it's incredible. I saw him last week and while he seemed to be doing okay (or as about as okay as you can be in that situation), doctors aren't sure if he'll even make it to his 82nd birthday in March :/
[QUOTE=SilverDragon619;49776478]Asbestos is a good material for making brakes for motorized land and air vehicles. The company mining and distributing it is fucking horrid. No concern for health or safety. Just give the workers hazmat suits, put a big cover or ventilation system up for the mine, and just balance it out. You won't lose a dime. No need to panic either, just handle the material with caution and keep a safe distance. That's it.[/QUOTE] The problem is not just the handling but also the application. Sure, if you use asbestos in a way where it doesn't come into contact with humans or where fibers aren't released it isn't a problem, in theory. But there is always a scenario where something goes wrong. Roof collapses, for example. All it takes is a storm, a tree branch and you're exposed and these things happen all the time, its a major reason not to use it in construction. The other thing is disposal. Everything you build with asbestos will have to be disposed of eventually. Not necessarily due to safety reasons, just normal, regular disposal work. Most of the time, asbestos goes unnoticed because, at the time of construction nobody thought twice about it. If you work in a job where you handle any kind of waste, you're running a pretty considerable risk. Talking about breaks, my neighbor used to do highway roadside work way back and a lot of his colleagues came down with respiratory diseases from the dust released from break pads. Sure, it doesn't concern a large number of people but its unnecessary
Lets just hope that graphene isn't as dangerous.
[QUOTE=PelPix123;49778227]i find it interesting that we ban asbestos because it killed 50-100k people a year from lung cancer and yet cigarettes are still perfectly legal despite killing 5-10 million in the same span of time, with an identical health risk coverup to the asbestos industry's coverup. It's just fascinating and scary that all you have to do is have something be habit forming and the government will do nothing even if it's 10 times as deadly[/QUOTE] Well asbestos and cigarettes have very different uses. One is a hazardous material that its producing corporations try to cram wherever they can for profit. And the other is a hazardous vice. People seek it out. [editline]20th February 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Buck.;49778311]Lets just hope that graphene isn't as dangerous.[/QUOTE] It is. But graphene doesn't come in such abundance that it isn't being put everywhere. Graphene is also triumphing in a time where safety and health regulations are a thing. So there probably won't be things like: putting sack's of graphene in houses or using it for air filtration, not to mention fake snow. The olden golden times were fucked when it came to regulations.
[QUOTE=PelPix123;49778227]i find it interesting that we ban asbestos because it killed 50-100k people a year from lung cancer and yet cigarettes are still perfectly legal despite killing 5-10 million in the same span of time, with an identical health risk coverup to the asbestos industry's coverup. It's just fascinating and scary that all you have to do is have something be habit forming and the government will do nothing even if it's 10 times as deadly[/QUOTE] there's a difference between a vice commodity and something like asbestos. you probably have asbestos in your home and don't even know it. asbestos has [I]tons[/I] of uses. really before the scientific consensus arose about its harm, asbestos was a fuckin super mineral. wide ranging uses. so the people who have exposure to asbestos either a) don't know they're getting it, or are b) being exposed as a direct result of work (whether mining, construction, etc); meaning they really don't have much choice - they have to eat. that's part of the reason why there's this buffer zone around asbestos manufacturers and the assorted shipyards and other manufacturers. this is in stark contrast to cigarettes. cigarettes are a voluntary vice, with a depth of public understanding on the public health effects. as a result, basically if you choose to smoke cigarettes you're doing so at your own peril. you don't rely on them to survive through work, and you know you're smoking them.
[QUOTE=codemaster85;49776303]the other day i found an extremely old packet of Asbestos fake snow. tossed that shit like it was anthrax. looked like this: [t]https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3401/3562946987_e9c1dfc78b_b.jpg[/t][/QUOTE] if someone told me this was just taking the piss out of the shitty safety regulations of the 50s i would've probably believed them
[QUOTE=Killer900;49777321]Yeah my grand-uncle has mesothelioma from working in steel mills back when it was used to insulate the factories, my grandmother saw him a few months ago and said he weighed like 100 pounds and was very weak, wouldn't eat, just looked terrible,. His kids got him some cannabis pills though and boy did they ever work, he was eating, he was working, he gained about 60 pounds back, it's incredible. I saw him last week and while he seemed to be doing okay (or as about as okay as you can be in that situation), doctors aren't sure if he'll even make it to his 82nd birthday in March :/[/QUOTE] some people call lawyers who work with stuff like workers' comp ambulance chasers and shit like that, but that's really not what it is. since you've seen how bad it can get, you know how real that shit is. and what i'd say is that it's very likely that your grand-uncle's employer was fully aware of the dangers of asbestos. i would strongly, strongly recommend seeking out a workers' compensation attorney and seeking damages from his employer or asbestos manufacturers. a lot of people get swamped by medical bills that from a moral and legal standpoint are the obligation of the employer to pay. the US Department of Labor has a ton of programs that are designed to help get medical care and in some cases monetary damages to people who have been hurt by asbestos. medical care is the easiest thing to get, but you can also obtain widows benefits for his spouse, you can also obtain funeral compensation to around $3,000 USD, etc etc. if your grand-uncle (and presumably grand-aunt?) are whatsoever financially unstable, find an attorney. as long as he hasn't passed the statute of limitations they should get access to (and deserve) compensation for the injuries suffered at the hands of his employer.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;49775884]Its banned federally but obviously something so prevalent is still around.[/QUOTE] When I went to the Kennedy Space Center's administration and manufacturing building(s), about maybe a fifth of the rooms I passed by on the prototyping floor were locked down and signs warning of asbestos, because the building was built in the 1950s and NASA can't afford to replace it.
My school got condemned for asbestos
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