The New York Times reports:
This city of about 70,000 people on the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains is a pleasant enough place to live except for one big drawback: when the wind picks up, clouds of carcinogenic dust blow through.
The New York Times reports:
This city of about 70,000 people on the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains is a pleasant enough place to live except for one big drawback: when the wind picks up, clouds of carcinogenic dust blow through.
If blue asbestos dust gets stuck in your lungs you are in big trouble. It has tiny little hooks that wont wash out. Take care renovating asbestos material and breathing in the dust. Trust me. I was at Wittenoom, I heard the coughing. I left before the dying.
One has to be careful in combining exposures to the six types of asbestos as they very a great deal in risk to cancer. Two types were combined in the exposure study that powered the hysteria against all asbestos.
The fundamental truth that the alarmists ignore is this: case histories apply ONLY to individuals; statistics ONLY apply to large groups.
Asbestos does NOT cause cancer; it causes irritation. Irritation can SOMETIMES cause DNA damage. DNA damage CAN contribute to cancer. The chain of cancer causality is NOT deterministic.
Health is weird. Get used to it. Being continually exposed to carcinogens, even in high does, doesn’t automatically mean that you will get cancer. Nor does being “good” mean you won’t. Exposure does weight the dice quite a bit, with the highest correlation being between heavy smoking and lung cancer (20x more likely), but still it might get you, it might not.
That’s one of the reasons cancer is so frightening.
Sure. My uncle smoked incessantly until 84 and died at 90. Smoking didn’t kill him. But it killed another uncle who died from mouth cancer from smoking a pipe incessantly. Driving a fast car wont kill you, but if you are the unlucky one, it will.
So, why doesn’t everyone who has lived in this area for more than 15 years have cancer???? Why does a man who worked in the factory for 40 years breathing huge amounts of this dangerous carcinogen only have asbestosis and is still alive at over 80??????