People are exposed to asbestos every day, but the question is, how much exposure is too much? According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) “There is no “safe” level of asbestos exposure for any type of asbestos fiber. Asbestos exposures as short in duration as a few days have caused mesothelioma in humans.” (https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/asbestos/#4) This is why its concerning when asbestos is discovered in products we use on our bodies and in buildings we frequent.
Last week the Environmental Working Group (EWG) posted an article about asbestos in a certain brand of young girl’s makeup products. You can read the article here (thankfully the product has been discontinued by the retailer). As discussed in one of our previous articles it was most likely the talc in this product that contained asbestos. Still, this is scary when you think about all the young girls that have used this product and have now been exposed to asbestos, even if only briefly.
It’s hard to imagine that hospitals, the very places we go to be treated for illnesses, are causing people to become sick. In London, asbestos in hospitals has caused mesothelioma related deaths in at least 7 employees since 2011 according to the BBC. In one case it was just a matter of ignoring exposed asbestos that employees were exposed to on a daily basis as they walked around the hospital campus. Proper removal, or at the very least containment, could have prevented the exposure that was ultimately fatal (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-40568558).
These kind of seemingly harmless asbestos exposures are what we need to work to prevent through better monitoring, a more proactive approach and tougher regulations. We have to more closely monitor products that might have asbestos in them or in their ingredients, this alone could drastically reduce exposure. When asbestos is discovered it’s important that professionals are called in to access the risk and properly remove or contain it before people without safety equipment are exposed. Finally, we need to start thinking about stricter regulations in order to keep people safe from asbestos, a known killer.
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