DIY at home without realising it’s asbestos - very worried!

[SteamyTea]

I wondered how it was tested.

 

 

Edited January 11 by SteamyTea

[MBT6]

Only two people I know of have had asbestosis, one is about 80 years old and worked with it all his life as a builder breathing in the dust on many occasions, but he is managing the condition with medication. The other person's father worked in a ship yard and must have brought it home on his clothes, then he got asbestosis and died in his late 70s of it, he may have been exposed in other ways. 

 

Expose to asbestos is defiantly something you want to avoid, but it is not the end of the world if it happens, no point making yourself sick with worry. Anxiety and worry about asbestos could end up be more harmful than a one off exposure event.  But I live in an old house with an asbestos roof etc. and it does worry me at times, but I try and put it out of my mind.

 

With it having only been banned in 1999 every old person has lived around asbestos for most of their lives. 

[Alan Ambrose]

Actually we have a friend who died from emphysema, probably caused by asbestos. He was a stage manager, probably picked it up from some tunnels in the ICA where he worked for a bit. There is a government compensation programme which is not too difficult to access given how hard it is normally to get funds out of the government.

 

i wonder whether @ks6788 is going to to tell us what results he got?

[LSB]

One of my neighbours died late last year of asbestosis, caused from when he was in the Navy.

Big arguments between the family and the coroner now about industrial versus non-industrial version, if industrial then they can sue the government if not then well that's just bad luck.

But, that said it can kill you, but he was also a smoker, heavy drinker and in his late 70's and even though that's not old he had a pretty exotic life, one of his many wives was a Venezuelan stripper 🙂

 

[joe90]

20 minutes ago, LSB said:

if industrial then they can sue the government if not then well that's just bad luck.

I don’t get this idea of suing (unless it was negligence, ) the dangers of asbestos were not known initially and only contribute to 4% of lung cancers.

 

20 minutes ago, LSB said:

he was also a smoker, heavy drinker and in his late 70's

Smoking contributes to 27% of cancers and alcohol is a known poison, I think he was lucky to make his late 70s.

Edited March 10 by joe90

[billt]

The dangers of asbestos have been known for a long time. The first medical paper was published in 1924 in the BMJ and there were suspicions well before then. That paper dealt with fibrosis of the lung and TB. Suspicions of a link to cancer started in the 1930s and were confirmed in 1955 by Richard Doll.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1742940/

 

My father had H&S responsibilities in an aluminium recycling company and he had to consider the danger of asbestos in the early70s.

 

If we had a no fault compensation system then suing wouldn't be necessary, unfortunately we don't, so that's the course you may have to take in order to get compensation for something caused by others inaction.

 

I agree that the dangers of asbestos to the general public are overblown, like many other issues.

[Alan Ambrose]

>>> I don’t get this idea of suing (unless it was negligence, ) the dangers of asbestos were not known initially and only contribute to 4% of lung cancers.

 

In think it’s this - the government is ‘insurer of last resort’ whether that’s supporting failing banks or energy suppliers or thalidomide sufferers or postmasters or lessees of flats in buildings with inflammable cladding. That is, all members of society sometimes need to put their hand hands in their pockets to support some citizens who are disadvantaged - especially if this is due to circumstances which are not their own fault. Of course, the government usually does that by setting up complex rules about who gets what and how and who is excluded and those rules will sometimes need to be challenged.

 

And 4% doesn’t seem a big deal unless you happen to be one of them.

[joe90]

My point about suing is it wont bring the person back and the only financial reason I can see is compensation for lack of earnings for a dependant.  When my late wife died of cancer there was a suggestion that it was not spotted early enough but money would have been no compensation for my kids loosing their mum!

[MBT6]

1 hour ago, LSB said:

One of my neighbours died late last year of asbestosis, caused from when he was in the Navy.

Big arguments between the family and the coroner now about industrial versus non-industrial version, if industrial then they can sue the government if not then well that's just bad luck.

But, that said it can kill you, but he was also a smoker, heavy drinker and in his late 70's and even though that's not old he had a pretty exotic life, one of his many wives was a Venezuelan stripper 🙂

 

 

A lot of shipyard workers got asbestosis because they used to spray it on, also engineers working on ships would get it having to work around insulation and gaskets made from it. Even to this day a lot of only ships have it, it was only banned world wide on ships in 2002. But they still find it only some modern ships, particularly ones make in China, because it is still used in China and ends up on the ships. It is still used in a lot of countries surprisingly. A lot of the old offshore platforms in the North Sea have a lot of it, the ones built decades ago that are now getting decommissioned. 

 

A friend of mine is an electrical engineer on the railways and he was stay that a lot of the old sub-stations are still full of it, sometimes they have to drill through it but full precautions are taken.

 

A lot of things said about Asbestos are hard to prove for sure because there are not that many scientific studies. Like the different health implications from white, blue and brown. It may well be true but it is hard to prove scientifically because there are not that many studies. It would be hard to test the effects on animals because the health effects take decades to manifest. They just know it is carcinogenic and can kill, but the finer details beyond that are hard to prove.

 

I try and avoid exposure to it if possible, but if I was accidently exposed to a little I wouldn't worry about it. There are lots of other things in life that are also carcinogenic possibly a bigger health risk that a low level exposure to white asbestos. 

 

Walking down a busy city street and breathing in petrol and diesel fumes or living near someone with a wood burning stove and breathing in lots of PM2.5 particles are possibly a bigger carcinogenic risk. They now say that barbecued meat and rain water included carcinogens. People are regularly exposed to carcinogenic In day to day life, there is no point worrying about it. The stress and anxiety from worrying about getting exposed to things might be worse for health than actually getting exposed to them.

 

Many of the people who get asbestosis are in their late 70s or 80s so get it near the end of their life anyway, it didn't affect their quality of life when they were younger. Who knows what new treatments might be available to treat it in the decades so come.

Edited March 10 by MBT6

[LSB]

3 hours ago, joe90 said:

My point about suing is it wont bring the person back and the only financial reason I can see is compensation for lack of earnings for a dependant.  When my late wife died of cancer there was a suggestion that it was not spotted early enough but money would have been no compensation for my kids loosing their mum!

 

I agree, it won't bring him back and I think they should not do it, but his family live over 200 miles away from Suffolk and never came and saw him.

I've not idea what was in his will, but he had a big house and pension and by all accounts about 100k in liquid cash.  

So, maybe he left it to the cats home or something and that's what it's really about.

 

[SteamyTea]

10 hours ago, LSB said:

one of his many wives was a Venezuelan stripper

Was she in her late 70s?

[Alan Ambrose]

Well we can probably all agree that there are some health risks to building, some people are unlucky and we sympathise, and that we prefer all on BH to be careful - if only so they can answer everyone else's questions . 

[MBT6]

On 12/03/2024 at 15:48, Alan Ambrose said:

Well we can probably all agree that there are some health risks to building, some people are unlucky and we sympathise, and that we prefer all on BH to be careful - if only so they can answer everyone else's questions . 

 

People tend to focus on asbestos, but breathing in any construction dust is potentially unsafe.

 

Silica dust, wood dust and dust from other things like gypsum, limestone or marble. It is better to avoid breathing any of it in and use appropriate raspatory protection.

[joe90]

There is also “farmers lung” breathing in mold from hay etc leading to fibrosis and is not curable.

[SteamyTea]

7 hours ago, joe90 said:

farmers lung

Joe Grundy in the Archers always claimed that it was his Farmer's Lung that stopped him doing any hard work.

 

Sing Along time

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Barwick_Green.ogg