Asbestos scare-mongering - New York Times report on asbestos danger in public schools - Editorial

SHOWING exactly the respect for scientific fact that is expected of the National Enquirer, the New York Times hustled up a vast school asbestos scare through most of September, writing breathlessly of "cancer causing material which may be lurking" behind school walls. The scare resulted in late openings for many schools and the spending of $119 million on emergency "cleanup."

And all the while, the Times was censoring the views of experts on asbestos. We learn from the Washington-based Science and Environment Policy Project that some of the world's leading asbestos researchers wrote a letter to the Times arguing that the "epidemic of fear" was unwarranted.

"There is virtually no risk to schoolchildren from asbestos in the city public schools--unless asbestos is removed improperly," the letter said. Drafted by Dr. Brooke Mossman, a pathologist specializing in asbestos at the University of Vermont, and Dr. Bernard Gee of the Yale School of Medicine, the report was also signed by 15 other leading asbestos experts.

They wrote: "As scientists and physicians, including toxicologists, surgeons, clinical pulmonologists, fiber analysts, pathologists, epidemiologists . . . we conclude that the doses of asbestos fibers which may have caused cancer in [shipyard and mining] workplaces vastly exceed those to which schoolchildren will ever be exposed. Unless it can be demonstrated that the airborne levels of asbestos in city schools greatly exceed all the data on building levels of asbestos published to date, we believe the risk to schoolchildren is a non-problem." The letter should have been the basis of a front-page report, but it ran neither as a news report, nor as a commentary, nor even as a letter. It was spiked.

The scientists added that the only possible risk came from asbestos removal, which greatly increases levels of the fiber in the air. In some cases asbestos removal has raised airborne asbestos to the levels of wartime shipyards. "Except under unusual conditions, such as demolition or extensive renovation, we strongly advise against asbestos removal in schools. It is scientifically unsound, economically wasteful, and medically imprudent."

Dr. Mossman, co-drafter of the letter, said there was a theoretical risk in the range of 0.005 to 0.009 deaths per million children from school asbestos. This compared with a known incidence of 10 per million from playing high-schoool football. But that fact would have gotten in the way of a good scare story.