#but it frustrates me that asbestos is treated as though it's an equal-opportunity killer

[girderednerve]

okay so i reblogged that post about medieval ‘salamander wool’ garments made from chrysotile asbestos a bit ago with more information and a source, but i looked through the notes first and they bothered me so much i’m still thinking about it, so here’s more information about asbestos 

people make mesothelioma memes now & that’s their prerogative & many of them are quite funny, but i am only okay with them if we are all on the same page about asbestos here. i did not know until fairly recently what mesothelioma is or what asbestos does, other than ‘cause cancer’ and ‘not catch on fire,’ so i have been doing a lot of reading lately & now i want to clear something up because this is going to bother me until i write it down. asbestos insulation, asbestos fabric, asbestos cement -- they don’t kill people once they’re installed unless they’re damaged. the omnipresence of asbestos has created risk, as these products have degraded over time, but deadly exposure is primarily occupational. 

asbestos fibers kill workers who mine, refine, package, ship, and install asbestos, and now the workers who remove and dispose of it. asbestos-related diseases are still primarily occupational, and they kill mostly working people. environmental asbestos exposure occurs, primarily -- though not exclusively -- through airborne asbestos dust; incidence is particularly high around old factories and mines and the few that still operate (asbest, for example). in fact, the connection between asbestos and mesothelioma was first demonstrated by an epidemiological study of a south african amphibole mining township in 1960. mesothelioma is a cancer of the tissue lining the chest or abdomen, and it kills people quickly and painfully, usually within eighteen months. there is no safety gear which can entirely protect against asbestos fibers, and accordingly mesothelioma -- and asbestosis and asbestos-related lung cancer -- are occupational hazards. that’s why they’re more prevalent in men, although women’s incidence has gone up significantly in the last few years. asbestos-related disease has killed millions of people; in 2008, it killed around 90 thousand people worldwide, and the WHO estimates that around 125 million people are exposed to asbestos in their workplaces. the risk now acknowledged in the west has not prevented the use of asbestos in the third world, and there is no global ban: what this means is that there will be asbestos-related deaths by the thousands until at least mid-century, and because the risk of asbestos is now widely known, the workers who are involved in the industry are likely to already be vulnerable in other ways.

the point here is that the kings and emperors who had rare and priceless fireproof garments did not get mesothelioma, or asbestosis, or lung cancer. they kept their regalia like treasure -- they wore it rarely, perhaps only in death, and died regally of gout, infection, and old age. the people who were at risk were the miners and weavers, people who are always at risk. the joke that feudal lords got their just deserts along with their salamander shirts is still just a joke: that didn’t & doesn’t happen. the companies that installed asbestos and suppressed the connection between asbestos & lung cancer in the fifties, and then between asbestos & mesothelioma in the sixties, and lied about their safety standards, and refused to pay compensation, and kept selling record high amounts of asbestos in the eighties -- they’re fine. so are the government officials who let them do it. even if company stock plummeted, the people who worked in their offices can breathe. asbestos-related disease is class war. it has been class war this whole time. 

read about it.