WASHINGTON, D.C., SEPTEMBER 23, 1993--New York City officials are subjecting parents and schoolchildren to unwarranted cancer fears--and to possible future health hazards--from an uncontrolled asbestos removal program in the New York City public schools, according to a statement signed by 17 world renown scientists from the United States and Great Britain, and released today by The Science & Environmental Policy Project.
The statement, mailed to the editor of the New York Times, notes that virtually all of the scientific evidence on the risk of cancer and other diseases from asbestos has been ignored. Children are not at increased risk from the long-term effects of exposure to minute levels of asbestos found in schoolroom air. Fiber levels that may have caused cancer in the workplace, they said, vastly exceed those to which these children are exposed.
But improperly conducted asbestos removal is a concern since it can release substantial amounts of asbestos fibers into the air. Post-abatement fiber levels are occasionally so high, they said, that they approach those that asbestos workers were exposed to 50 years ago. Moreover, these fibers levels can remain high for months afterward.
Said Dr. Brooke Mossman of the University of Vermont College of Medicine, "The Environmental Protection Agency has been strangely silent on the situation in New York, despite data presented in an EPA-funded Health Effects Institute panel report showing that asbestos removal elevated fiber levels in buildings." She also noted that an EPA-funded study of airborne asbestos fibers in well-maintained and poorly maintained buildings found no correlation between the condition of the asbestos and fiber levels. These studies, and others, have led the EPA to recommend against rampant removal of asbestos in buildings, stating that it may create more of a hazard than simply leaving it alone.
Dr. Mossman, who drafted the scientists' statement along with Dr. Arthur Langer of the Institute of Applied Sciences and Dr. Bernard Gee of the Yale University School of Medicine, was openly critical of the asbestos "experts" frequently called upon for comment by the news media. "The people acting as spokesmen have made no original scientific contributions to asbestos research and do not represent the broad scientific viewpoint," she said. "What they do is write position papers and serve as paid witnesses in plaintiff litigation. They are rarely seen at conferences and other scientific meetings on asbestos."
Mossman also objected to a highly publicized asbestos seminar, funded by plaintiffs' attorneys, which was held in New York in June 1990. "Many pioneering asbestos researchers were not included in that meeting, despite requests for invitations," she said, "yet it is still being cited as a representative meeting of the scientific community, and as conclusive evidence for an asbestos "crisis."
"What we have in New York," said Candace Crandall of The Science & Environmental Policy Project, "is the precautionary principle run amok. In the past, government officials have tried to excuse costly environmental policies by claiming they were driven by public demand. It's hard to imagine, in this instance, that New York City parents are demanding that officials create a health hazard where none may have existed before.
"City officials could have put together a public education program for a fraction of the cost of asbestos removal," said Crandall. Had they done so, parents would have quickly come to realize that the hazard they fear could not exist in their children's classrooms.
September 23, 1993
TO THE EDITOR, NEW YORK TIMES: "CALL ON THE ASBESTOS SCARE"
New York Times reports concerning asbestos in city schools indicate a continuing administrative crisis which has clearly caused major anxieties for both parents and school officials. As scientists who have spent years studying asbestos concentrations and exposures in buildings and other settings, as well as asbestos-related cancers and cancers in general, we believe that New York City officials are unnecessarily subjecting parents and children to unwarranted fears and to possible future health hazards from uncontrolled asbestos removal. There is virtually no risk to school children from asbestos in the city public schools--unless asbestos is removed improperly.
We have followed this story over the past several weeks with great interest, and are saddened that virtually all of the relevant scientific data have been ignored. This has created an unneeded epidemic of fear, as described in your article, "Fall is Near, School is Out and Chaos Looms" (NYT, Sept. 3, 1993). We wish, however, to amplify on your subsequent article, "Experts Say Fear of Asbestos Exceeds Risk in School" (NYT, Sept. 4, 1993)
Almost four years ago, the U.S. Congress commissioned the Boston-based Health Effects Institute (HEI) to assemble a panel of experts to write a report entitled Asbestos in Public and Commercial Buildings, which was recently updated through a supplementary analysis. Both the original and supplementary analyses document and amass much of the world's data on the types and levels of asbestos fibers seen in buildings and schools. This information was carefully and comprehensively compiled by a panel of scientists, and included measurements not only from scientific publications but also from unpublished reports solicited from the public domain. Virtually all of the fiber counts from asbestos-containing schools and public buildings demonstrate those levels to be either undetectable or minuscule (i.e., at the lowest levels of detection) using light and "state of the art" electron microscopy. The HEI report, as well as peer-reviewed scientific studies and international symposia, has also demonstrated that airborne fiber levels of asbestos outside buildings may be equal or actually higher than inside. (This is well illustrated in Table 3-5 of the supplementary analysis.)
As scientists and physicians, including toxicologists, surgeons, clinical pulmonologists, fiber analysts, pathologists, epidemiologists, mineralologists, and geologists, we have studied extensively the animal and human data relevant to asbestos-related diseases and the types and levels of fibers needed to produce disease. In fact, our work represents many of the most important, original scientific contributions to the field. We conclude that the doses of asbestos fibers which may have caused cancer in the workplace vastly exceed those to which schoolchildren will ever be exposed to in asbestos- containing buildings. Unless it can be demonstrated that the airborne levels of asbestos in New York City schools greatly exceed all of the data on building levels of asbestos published to date, we believe the risk to school children is a non-problem.
It is clear that children are not at increased risk from the long-term effects of exposure to minute levels of asbestos found in schoolroom air. Unnecessary and improperly conducted asbestos removal, however, is a real concern since it has the ability to release substantial quantities of asbestos into the air. "Post-abatement" fiber levels are occasionally so high that they approach levels to which asbestos workers were exposed to 50 years ago.
Except under unusual conditions, such as demolition or extensive renovation, we strongly advise against asbestos removal in schools. It is scientifically unsound, economically wasteful and medically imprudent. as cautioned by the American Medical Association (Journal of the American Medical Association 255:696-697 1991), since it carries potentially unnecessary future risks.
The public's fears could be substantially allayed through education. Rational voices must be heard. Interviews with individuals who pioneered this field should be broadcast to the public, not only in New York but also nationwide, to understand the conditions under which asbestos-related cancers arose historically. If this were done, the public would appreciate that those conditions of the past could never exist in classrooms today. More importantly, calm would prevail. Science, and not unreasonable emotion. should guide both the administrative and the public response.
Andrew Churg, M.D.
Department of Laboratory Medicine
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 2B5
CANADA
Tel: (604) 822-7775; Fax: (604) 822-7575
Morton Corn, Ph.D.
Johns Hopkins University
School of Public Health
615 N. Wolfe Street, Rm. 6010
Baltimore, Maryland 21205
Tel: (410) 955-3602; Fax: (410) 955-9334
John Craighead, M.D.
University of Vermont
Colchester Research Facility
55A South Park Drive
Colchester, VT 05446
Tel: (802) 656-8940; Fax: (802) 656-8946
John M.G. Davis, D.V.M.*
Institute of Occupational Medicine
Roxburgh Place
Edinburgh
SCOTLAND EH8 9FU
Tel: 011-44-31-663-8314; Fax: 011-44-31-667-0136
Edward Gaensler, M.D.
Boston University School of Medicine
Thoracic Services
80 E. Concord Street
Boston, MA 02118-4077
Tel: (617) 638-4077; Fax: None
J. Bernard Gee, M.D.
Dept. of Internal Medicine
Yale University School of Medicine
333 Cedar Street, Rm. LM 5038
New Haven, CT 06510
Tel: (203) 785-4195; Fax: (203) 785-3826
Edward Ilgren, M.D.
Joint appointment: Bryn Mawr, U.S., and University of Oxford, UK
U.S. address:
830 Montgomery Avenue, #503,
Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
Tel: (215) 525-5960; Fax: (215) 520-1156
Marvin Kuschner, M.D.
Dean Emeritus of the School of Medicine
State University of New York at Stony Brook
Stony Brook, NY 11790
Tel: (516) 444-3000; Fax: (516) 444-3424
Arthur Langer Ph.D.*
Director
Environmental Sciences Laboratories
Institute of Applied Sciences
Brooklyn College
Bedford Avenue, Avenue 8
New York, NY 11210
Tel: (718) 951-4793; Fax: (718) 951-4607
Rich Lee, Ph.D.*
R.J. Lee Group, Inc.,
350 Hochberg Road,
Monroeville, PA 15146
Tel: (412) 325-1776; Fax: (412) 733-1799
Brooke Mossman, Ph.D.*
Dept. of Pathology
University of Vermont College of Medicine
Burlington, VT 05405
Tel: (802) 656-2210; Fax: (802) 656-8892
Robert Murray, M.D.
South Hill, Church Road, Newton Green,
Sudbury, Suffolk CO1 00QP
UNITED KINGDOM
Tel: 011-0787-312-820; Fax: 011-0787-310-138
Molly Newhouse, M.D.
Emeritus, Dept. of Occupational Health,
London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
London
UNITED KINGDOM
Tel: 011-071-262-8676; Fax: None
Robert Nolan, Ph.D.
Institute of Applied Sciences
Brooklyn College
Bedford Avenue, Avenue 8
New York, NY 11210
Tel: (718) 951-4793; Fax: (718) 951-4607
Malcolm Ross, Ph.D.
U.S. Geological Survey
MS959
Reston, VA 22092
Tel: (703) 648-6760; Fax: 648-6789
H. Catherine Skinner, Ph.D.
Yale University
Jonathan Edwards College
Dept. of Geology and Geophysics
Box 6666
New Haven, CT 06511
Tel: (203) 432-3787; (203) 432-5668
J. Christopher Wagner, M.D.* (first to identify the tumor mesothelioma)
MRC Pneumoconiosis Unit
Llandough Hospital,
Penarth
South Glamorgan CF6 lXW
Wales
UNITED KINGDOM
Tel: 011-44-305-833-902; Fax: 011-44-305-266-120
* Members of the HEI panel
Note: Affiliations are for identification purposes only.