Make Asbestos Great Again? - Trump Once Claimed " Movement Against by Asbestos was Led by the Mob, " Now is EPA Wants to Relax Asbestos Regulation

Introduction:  An Old Public Health MenaceThis is somewhat personal.  In the early 1980s, as a general internal medicine fellow, I gave a series of talks about important medical problems that generalist physicians often missed.  One was asbestos related disease.  Although asbestos had been heavily regulated since 1973, there were stilll large numbers of people exposed to it alive in the 1980s.  One of my primitive slides, seemingly a picture of type writing, stated that around then, 2 to 4 million people who had histories of significant asbestos exposure were likely alive.  Asbestos is known to cause several cancers.  It is likely the nearly exclusive cause of mesothelioma.  It also causes lung cancer, and may act synergistically with smoking, and likely gastrointestinal and head and neck cancer.  It causes asbestosis, which can lead to respiratory failure.In 2018, the evidence that asbestos is a major health hazard is quite clear. (See summaries byThe National Cancer Institute, theAgency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, theOccupational Safety and Health Adminstration.)  Note that the rates of death from mesothelioma per capita are declining, but still substantial (lookhere).  The application of asbestos can be very hazardous, but once applied it can still endanger not only those who remove it, but firefighters, other first responders, etc.  People can be exposed indirectly, e.g., from asbestos on the cloth...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Management Tags: asbestos cancer conflicts of interest Donald Trump public health Source Type: blogs