No Carcinogen Left Behind! Trump's EPA Wants to Reverse the Ban on Asbestos

The inexorable march of American public health forward into the past goes merrily onward. From The New York Times:

Known as “white” asbestos, chrysotile asbestos is banned in more than 50 countries for its link to lung cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer that forms in the lining of internal organs. White asbestos, however, has been imported for use in the United States for roofing materials, textiles and cement as well as gaskets, clutches, brake pads and other automotive parts. It is also used in chlorine manufacturing.

Last year the Environmental Protection Agency, under President Joseph R. Biden, adopted a ban on the use, manufacture and import of chrysotile asbestos. It was the first legal constraint on a deadly substance since 2016, when Congress updated and strengthened the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act by requiring testing and regulation of thousands of chemicals used in everyday products.

Lord above, I thought we'd all agreed on asbestos. The scientific consensus is undeniable. Huge settlements have been paid out in lawsuits on behalf of hundreds of thousands of victims over the years. Everybody knows how to spell "mesothelioma." (Hell, it killed poor Warren Zevon at fifty-six.) But we had not reckoned with the new philosophies of American public health—No Carcinogen Left Behind and Truncated Lives Matter.

According to the filing, the agency will reconsider removing the rule’s bans on the import and use of asbestos in the production of chlorine, and the installation of new asbestos-containing sheet gaskets in chemical manufacturing and other facilities. The filing was signed by Lynn Dekleva, a former official with the American Chemistry Council who also worked in the first Trump administration.

Quel coinkiy-dink! This stuff kills the people who dig it from the Earth. It kills the people who transport it. It kills the people who work with it. And it kills the people who don't even know it's there.

Asbestos, a set of six naturally occurring fibrous minerals that have the ability to resist heat, fire and electricity, is linked to an estimated 40,000 deaths annually. In the 1960s and 1970s, researchers began to associate it with health problems, including mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive cancer that disproportionately affects firefighters exposed to asbestos through damaged buildings. Asbestos production in the United States stopped in 2002 but the material is still imported, much of it from Brazil. The presence of asbestos in older homes added to the health risks for firefighters battling the California wildfires this year.

Death may take a holiday, but poisons don't.