5 ms·
Having just lost a father-in-law to mesothelioma (June 2018), this makes me incredibly sad. I understand this is not an actual rule change and blah blah blah.
by nemacol 8y ago
Having just lost a father-in-law to mesothelioma (June 2018), this makes me incredibly sad.
I understand this is not an actual rule change and blah blah blah. 3,000 people are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year.
What a slow and horrific way to go. Slowly losing your breath. Lungs filling with fluid and being rushed off to ER to drain. Endless breathing treatments. Never sleeping more than an hour without waking up coughing. I am sure many of you are aware the treatments can be just as painful as the illness itself.
The man I knew when through all of this and more spread over a decade. 2 lung lobectomy surgeries. Chemo. Radiation. Misc corrective surgeries. Not to mention the hassles of the American healthcare system, doctors, lawyers, bills, and enough paperwork to fill a small office building.
3000 people a year.
I can only understand new deployments of asbestos if they are...
"perfectly safe"
Saving thousands of lives
There is no alternative.
- mtw 8y ago> Not to mention the hassles of the American healthcare system, doctors, lawyers, bills, and enough paperwork to fill a small office building. For reference, each new case costs the Canadian healthcare system $1m CAD.
- arcticbull 8y agoAssuming case costs are evenly distributed and proportional to per capita expenditure, that means each new case would cost the US healthcare system about $1.6M USD. Something tells me that's an underestimate.
- dmix 8y agoIt does say it's only being approved in special cases. I wouldn't expect the building industry to suddenly start using it again. How many of those 3000 are a legacy of the previous eras misunderstanding of the chemical? I doubt any company would ignore that risk and produce a product that put people at a direct and unknown risk, especially given the legal liability since we now know the full risks of the chemical and the alternatives the market has long ago developed in every category.
- mrguyorama 8y ago>I doubt any company would ignore that risk and produce a product that put people at a direct and unknown risk Those companies did exactly that! Asbestos companies knew the dangers internally. It's no different than cigarette companies suppressing the science of how smoking is dangerous
- adventured 8y agoMost of those companies were destroyed for it. That's why the parent is speculating companies wouldn't do it now that the medical dangers are fully understood and the matter has been turned into a vast, lucrative profit field in the legal realm.
- nemacol 8y agoThe cases per year are going down and the average age of diagnosis is 69. So you are right in that most of this is legacy. But we know now and knew then that it was dangerous. Much like the radium girls in the early 1900's - where the people delivering the paint would wear leaded protective equipment and then management would watch (and encourage) the girls lick the paint brushes to keep the tip pointed. They knew it was bad. They just didn't give a fuck.
- hfdgiutdryg 8y agoI'd never heard of radium girls and found this interesting: https://www.cnn.com/style/article/radium-girls-radioactive-paint/index.html https://www.cnn.com/style/article/radium-girls-radioactive-p... I'm slightly confused why the public at large was ignorant of the danger of radium (and even thought it was healthy), but the radium girl managers knew the danger...?