Asbestos Legislation Pushed By American Public Health Association

Asbestos exposure is the cause of many types of serious, debilitating, and sometimes chronic health concerns. Inhalation of asbestos fibers has been linked to several respiratory illnesses, such as asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma, a rare but deadly type of cancer linked directly to asbestos exposure. Other health concerns include asbestos warts, pleural plaques, and pleural thickening. As prolonged exposure to asbestos has been linked to such serious and often deadly health concerns, most manufacturing and production plants in the United States have made it a point to remove asbestos from their construction procedures. This has been difficult for many companies, though those hit most directly have been in the manufacture and production of building materials, especially insulation, roofing tiles, Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditiong (HVAC), and flame-retardant materials. Because of its flame-resistant properties, asbestos was widely used as a superior insulator within many buildings, in boiler rooms, naval ships, and a wide range of other places where the possibility of fire was a threat.

Again, as the understandings of asbestos exposure and its links to diseases grew, manufacturing and production plants struggled to remove it from their products. It is widely held and accepted today that none of our building materials contain asbestos, with very few exceptions. Indeed, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have all instituted strict regulations on the limits to which an employee can be exposed to this material as well as limits to the amount of asbestos a given product can contain. Not only does this keep the number of asbestos-related diseases to a minimum, it also protects the manufacturing and production companies from costly mesothelioma lawsuits that could cost them millions of dollars per settlement.

Recently, the American Public Health Association (APHA) adopted a resolution asking Congress to consider legislation prohibiting the manufacture, sale, import, or export of asbestos-containing products, including products in which asbestos could be or is known to be a contaminant. In a statement, the Chair of APHA's Occupational Health and Safety section, Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH, said, "With this new policy, APHA is joining the World Federation of Public Health Associations and other international organizations calling for a global ban on asbestos mining, and manufacturing, and the dangerous practice of exporting asbestos containing products." The APHA hopes to completely eliminate all threat of industrial and commercial asbestos exposure and subsequently reduce the number of deaths from asbestos-related illnesses. It is estimated that asbestos is responsible annually for taking the lives of more than 10,000 Americans.

This is not the first time legislation has been brought to the table in an attempt to remove asbestos from manufacture and production entirely. In 1989, the EPA issued the Asbestos Ban and Phase Out Rule, banning most asbestos-containing products. However, in 1991, this regulation was overturned by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. The new regulation now bans specific products from containing asbestos, though there are many products still allowed to contain trace amounts of asbestos and asbestos-contaminated materials.