BAN ALL OF ASBESTOS NO EXCEPTIONS!!!
Friday, December 14th, 2007SUPPORT THE BAN ASBESTOS IN AMERICA BILL AS IT WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN!!!
YOU GUESSED IT, BIG INDUSTRY IS PAYING TO HAVE THE BAN ASBESTOS IN AMERICA ACT GUTTED, UNTIL IT IS MEANINGLESS, AND THEY CAN GO ON PUTTING PROFIT OVER PEOPLE!!!
SOURCE: AN IMPORTANT NOTE FROM THE ADAO SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD
(By Dr. Arthur Frank and Dr. Richard Lemen)
When ADAO testified for passage of the Ban Asbestos Bill to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) and when it passed out of the EPW the bill banned all asbestos containing products (ACP).
However, after the bill went out of committed and before a full Senate vote a change was made in the language of the Bill which left out the ban on asbestos containing products specifically allowing the Bill to ban only the 6 commercial forms of asbestos containing greater than 1% asbestos. The bill however, still includes a section about asbestos containing products (ACP) which states that there should not be asbestos at any detectable or known concentrations, however, as the Bill now reads it only bans ACM not ACP. This language change has weaken the Bill considerably and means that companies already selling asbestos contaminated products will be entirely free to continue this practice and will be further shielded by this legislation as the prior regulations were not widely applicable to stop the sale of asbestos containing products.
Thus, the public can, and likely will, be further exposed to such products and create a false sense of security since asbestos containing products will still be legal. The ADAO would like to have the language of the Bill as it was voted out of EPW re-instated which would ban all asbestos containing products.
The ADAO has also recently learned of the inadequacy of the Polarized Light Microscopy method (PLM) to identify asbestos at and below the 1% by weight level and would suggest that the PLM be augmented with TEM analysis in the identification of ACM so that less than 1% asbestos can be adequately identified. It is not the 1% by weight of asbestos that is critical, but it is the amount of respirable asbestos that is released from the 1% by weight asbestos material or product that is critical for the protection of the public. Analytical techniques exist to evaluate the release of such respirable fibers and have shown that products containing less than 1% asbestos, when disturbed, can easily exceed the short term exposure limit (STEL). It is hoped that these issues can be resolved in the House version of the Bill and agreed to by the Conference committee in rectifying the two Bills. CALL YOUR CONGRESS MAN/WOMAN AND DEMAND THAT ALL ASBESTOS BE BANNED!!!!
** Anything less will not be a ban on asbestos and will still allow thousands of people to be exposed to asbestos from asbestos containing commercial products.