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Welcome to the deep dive. Today we’re tackling well a real paradox. A material that was once hailed as a miracle. Incredibly useful uh almost indestructible. >> Right. Revered even by ancient civilizations. >> Exactly. But it turned into one of the most well insidious threats to human health we’ve known. Yeah. >> We are talking of course about asbestous. >> Mhm. So our mission today is to really unpack that, take you on a journey through its its hidden history, its
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devastating impact, and the whole legal mess it left behind. We want to go beyond the headlines, you know. >> And it’s fascinating, isn’t it, how our understanding or maybe our lack of understanding of this stuff evolved over literally millennia. Yeah. And how that long history often ignored still really hits us today. It shapes building codes, health policies, everything. >> That’s a perfect place to start. The name itself, Esbesus, comes from ancient Greek, meaning indestructible or
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unquenchable, >> which is just dripping with irony now. >> Totally. It perfectly captures that tragic irony. And for a surprisingly long time, people really ran with those properties. I mean, imagine finding something fireproof, corrosion resistant, a fantastic insulator. It must have seemed like magic back then. >> Oh, absolutely. A wonder material. >> Then they used it way back, like 3000 B.CE in Finland. Archaeologists think they use asbestous to make pottery stronger.
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>> You know, cooking pots that wouldn’t break easily, >> right? And in ancient Greece. >> Yeah, Greece, too. It apparently ended up in whitewash for those classic blue and white island houses. And even the ancient Egyptians, maybe 2,000, 30,000 B.C.E., they supposedly used asbestous cloth for wrapping pharaohs. >> Wow. >> Can you imagine? Some ancient crafts person maybe drops a scrap in the fire by accident and just stares >> because it doesn’t burn. It must have
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seemed otherworldly, but it speaks volumes about, you know, human ingenuity. Always pushing materials even if we don’t grasp the full picture. >> But the hints of danger were there, weren’t they? >> Even way back then. >> They were incredibly early. Actually, Ply the Younger, he was a Roman lawyer, a scholar around 61 to 112 AD. He actually wrote about slaves who mind asbestous getting sick. He called it a sickness of the lungs. >> So, they saw something. >> They saw something. There’s even that
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story, maybe a rumor about Romans cleaning asbestous napkins by throwing them in the fire. So, they knew it was fireproof. Unquenchable >> and not the health part. >> Exactly. Not the invisible danger. It’s a stark reminder really how easily the benefits can blind us to the long-term costs. It took centuries to connect those dots fully. >> It’s just wild how long that took. Do you think looking back the signs were clearer or was the science just not there yet? >> It’s probably a bit of both. I mean, the
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scientific methods we have now for tracking environmental health, they didn’t exist. Making those definitive links was tough. But the fact that Ply documented lung sickness, that tells you people were observing something was wrong. The challenge was pinning down the cause, the how, the why, that took a very, very long time. >> Then boom, the industrial age, >> right? Everything changed. >> Demand for asbestous just went through the roof. Mid-9th century, you start seeing actual mining operations pop up.
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>> Yeah. 1858, Staten Island, New York, mining a type called anthtoellite. >> And then Quebec, 1874, first big commercial mine, >> and industry just ate it up. Needed it for everything. Boiler wraps, fireproofing walls, equipment, factories. >> Yeah, >> it was the go-to material. >> But here’s the critical part. The huge lag between that explosion in use and the medical world catching up formally. >> Right. You mentioned plany. So people suspected things for centuries.
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suspected, maybe whispered about it, but actual medical publications much later. The first one linking asbestous to lung scarring specifically wasn’t until 1899, >> almost the 20th century. >> Yeah. And even then, it took until 1918 for the US Bureau of Labor Statistics to officially report, hey, asbestous workers have a high risk of dying early. >> And the evidence just kept piling up after that. >> It did. By the 1920s, there were like over 25 published articles linking
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asbestous and lung disease. Then 1934, a really chilling report. Researchers found workers getting cancer after just six months of exposure. Sometimes >> six months. Why? >> Especially people like boiler rappers, insulators, really intense direct exposure. But as the medical evidence grew, so did the corporate push back. >> Oh, the resistance. >> A powerful resistance trying to downplay it, muddy the waters. And later in court cases in the late 70s, it came out this conscious suppression of damning
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information, basically hiding the evidence to avoid lawsuits. >> And that just it raises huge ethical questions, doesn’t it? >> Absolutely. What responsibility do industries have? And what happens when profit motives clash so directly with public health? It’s a pattern we’ve seen repeated, unfortunately. And the human cost is enormous because it kept people exposed long after the dangers were becoming clear. >> Which brings us to today because even though the industrial age is over, the
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best isn’t gone. >> Not by a long shot. >> Government bans new uses mostly. But it’s still in older buildings, older materials. And actually, you mentioned this, the EPA banned a lot, but not everything. Some asbesus products are technically still allowed, maybe even produced. >> That’s right. The bands aren’t totally comprehensive, which surprises many people. So for you listening right now, where might you still find it? Mostly homes or businesses built, say, between
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the 40s and 60s, if they haven’t been heavily renovated. >> Exactly. Think attics, heating system, insulation, those old 9×9 in ceramic floor tiles are a classic example. >> Oh, yeah. I know the ones. >> Soundproofing materials, sometimes old fireresistant fabrics like blankets or curtains. >> And it’s not just in buildings, right? It occurs naturally, too. >> It does. There are natural deposits found in pockets across most western US states, Alaska included, also the
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Appalachian, parts of California, like the Sierra Neadas. >> Interesting. Hawaii’s clear though, >> apparently. So, yes, no natural asbestous there. So, even undisturbed land can potentially have it. It’s not just history. It’s still physically present in our environment. That’s why awareness remains so vital. >> Okay, but here’s the key thing, right? The really practical takeaway. If it’s just sitting there undisturbed, >> it’s generally not an immediate deadly
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risk that’s crucial. The presence alone isn’t the danger. It’s the disturbance. That’s when it releases those tiny invisible fibers into the air >> like during a renovation or demolition. >> Precisely. Drilling, sawing, sanding, even just serious deterioration. That’s why testing before you do any work on a potentially asbestous containing materials is so incredibly important. You need to know if it’s there so you can take precautions. Let’s get into those fibers because they’re not just
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dust, are they? They’re >> different. Very different. They’re microscopic, needleike, and when they get airborne, you can breathe them in or swallow them without having any idea. You can’t see them, smell them, taste them, >> and the body can’t get rid of them. >> Nope. That’s the scary part. They’re essentially indestructible inside the body, too. They can’t dissolve. They can’t be broken down or passed through easily. So, they just stay lodged there
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in your lungs or sometimes the lining of your abdomen. for years, decades even, >> which leads to that terrifying latency period. >> Exactly. This is maybe the most insidious part of asbestous. The harm happens long, long before you feel anything. It often takes 20 to 50 years for metheloma, the cancer most associated with asbestous to develop after you were first exposed. >> 20 to 50 years. >> Yeah. Other related cancers might show up a bit sooner, maybe 10 to 30 years,
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but we’ve seen meloma cases pop up as quickly as 10 or 15 years or sometimes, wait for it, 70 years or more after exposure. >> 70 years. My god. So the cause and effect are completely disconnected in time. >> Completely. The invisible nature, the long delay, it makes it incredibly hard to track and prevent. It demands thinking about health risks on a multi-deade time scale. >> So what are these diseases specifically? Meoththeloma is the one people hear about most often, >> right? And technically, it’s not a lung
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cancer itself, but a cancer of the messothelium, that thin lining that protects your lungs, your abdomen, other organs. Treatments exist surgery, chemo, radiation, mainly to manage it and try to extend life. >> Okay. And astois, >> that’s different. It’s not cancer, but severe irreversible scarring of the lung tissue itself caused by the fibers makes breathing incredibly difficult. Treatments focus on managing symptoms, pain meds, oxygen therapy, sometimes surgery, >> and it can cause regular lung cancer,
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too. >> Yes, definitely. Both small cell and non small cell lung cancers can be triggered when those fibers get into the lung tissue. Standard cancer treatments apply there. Chemo, surgery, radiation, amunotherapy. >> And the symptoms, you mentioned they can be tricky, >> very tricky because they often mimic other things. you know, difficulty swallowing, feeling tightness in your chest, shortness of breath, a cough that won’t go away, chest pain, maybe even coughing up blood.
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>> Sounds like it could be a lot of things. >> Exactly. Which is why if you have any history of potential asbestous exposure, maybe an old job, living in an old house during renovations, you absolutely must tell your doctor if you develop symptoms like these, even if the exposure was decades ago. It’s crucial context. And can doctors even detect the fibers themselves like on an X-ray? >> No, unfortunately not. Standard chest X-rays won’t show the microscopic fibers. They might show early signs of
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lung disease like scarring from aspistosis, especially with high resolution CT scans or lung function tests. But detecting the initial damage from the fibers years before symptoms start very difficult because of that latency period. >> It’s just layer upon layer of difficulty. Invisible threat, delayed symptoms, hard to detect early. It really highlights why prevention and awareness were and still are so critical. >> So given this history, this hidden damage manifesting decades later,
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>> how does the legal system even begin to handle it? >> Well, it’s complicated. Occupational exposure getting exposed at work is the most common source of harm that leads to legal action. >> What kinds of jobs? historically and even sometimes today. I think plumbers, mechanics, shipyard workers, firefighters, definitely construction crews, factory workers, >> even people doing asbestous removal. Now, >> yes, abatement workers are also at risk if safety protocols aren’t strictly
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followed. The key thing legally is you generally need an actual diagnosis, an asbestous related injury like meloma. >> You can’t just sue because you think you were exposed. >> Typically, no. Exposure alone usually isn’t enough. You need documented harm. And then there are time limits, statutes of limitation which vary a lot by state. So once you get a diagnosis, you need to act relatively quickly to explore legal options. >> It sounds like a legal minefield. >> It absolutely is. Asbestous litigation
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is one of the longestr running, most complex and expensive mass tors in US legal history. >> Mass tors meaning lots of people suing over the same thing. >> Exactly. Huge numbers of people harmed by the same products or substances. And these cases are complex because of that latency period trying to prove exposure that happened 40 years ago. >> Yeah. How do you even do that? >> It takes incredibly skilled lawyers. They have to track down who made the products, who used them, where the
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exposure happened. And a lot of the original companies, they’re long gone, bankrupt, bought out. >> So, who do you sue? >> That’s the challenge. Attorneys specializing in this have databases and experience identifying the responsible parties, even successor companies. Evidence gathering is intense. digging up old work records, finding witnesses, identifying specific asbestous containing products used decades ago. >> Wow. Like historical detective work. >> It really is. And then there are the
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trust funds. This was a major development back in the 80s. Many asbestous companies filed for bankruptcy protection because of all the lawsuits. But as part of that process, courts often required them to set up special trust funds specifically to pay future victims. Today, there are still about 60 of these active trusts. So money set aside specifically for people diagnosed later. >> Exactly. It provides a route for compensation even if the original company doesn’t exist in the same form.
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>> So if someone is facing this, what should they ask a lawyer? >> Good question. Definitely ask about their specific experience with asbestous cases, messyloma, lung cancer. Ask how they estimate potential compensation covering medical bills, lost wages, travel, pain, and suffering. Understand how their fees work. Usually, it’s a contingency basis, meaning they only get paid if you win or settle, right? >> Ask about the likely timeline. Sometimes these cases can be expedited because of
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the claimant’s health. And find out who will actually be handling your case dayto-day. You need someone experienced and dedicated. >> And you mentioned state laws matter, like in Indiana. >> Yes. For example, in Indiana, the statute of limitations gives someone diagnosed with an asbestous cancer up to 2 years to file, which sounds like a while, but preparing these cases takes time. gathering medical records, employment history. >> So, don’t wait. >> Definitely don’t wait. Act swiftly once
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a diagnosis is confirmed. Knowledge here isn’t just about preventing future harm. It’s critical for navigating the aftermath if the harm has already occurred. The legal system is complex, but it’s there to try and address these long-term consequences. >> It’s quite a journey we’ve taken. From ancient Greeks admiring this indestructible rock >> to modern courtrooms dealing with the fallout decades later. >> The big takeaway for me is just how persistent and invisible this threat is.
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Even with bands, the legacy continues in buildings and the environment and tragically in people’s health. >> Knowledge really is the best defense. Knowing where it might be, knowing the risks of disturbing it, and knowing what to do if you suspect exposure or illness. >> And it does make you wonder, doesn’t it, about other materials we use so freely today. stuff that seems perfectly safe, maybe even miraculous. Could some of them harbor hidden dangers that only future generations, maybe decades or
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centuries from now, will fully understand? >> It really makes you think about the true cost of indestructible, doesn’t it? Yeah. >> What other wonder materials are we using right now that might have a hidden dark side? It certainly puts the need for caution, for foresight in science and industry into sharp focus.
