Asbestos All Around Us

It seems that, at long last, the dangers arising from asbestos in the world outside of demolition and construction is being more appreciated.

A recent story on the BBC website followed by coverage on BBC News sites, highlight the cases of two teachers who say they have become victims of mesothelioma, having worked in schools for many years. According to the NUT teaching union that commissioned the report that led to the story, 86% of schools in the UK had buildings that contained asbestos. This could be in ceiling tiles, wall boards, or many of the pieces of equipment used in science laboratories. It’s good then that the problem is being recognised, but what’s been done about it?

Well, in an interesting end to the piece on the BBC, they quote a professor from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who said "Because the levels of asbestos are [often] so low in schools, actually ripping it out could be more dangerous. It's a very nasty problem to get sorted. And for young people, the risk of dying of mesothelioma is more like 1 in 10,000, as there's a disconnect between those being diagnosed now and the exposure to the children of today."

He added that, were it possible, removing all asbestos from the environment would prevent "at most 25 deaths a year so trying to remove it from all schools could actually increase the number of deaths."

So the moral of the story is that we know asbestos is dangerous and in lots of places, but we are best leaving it there for someone else to clear up. And who do you suppose that will be!