In the closing years of the 20th Century, the world has come to know and fear a list of notorious environmental hazards, but few have caused more panic than a gray, fibrous mineral that found its way into millions of kitchens and classrooms: asbestos.
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Asbestos once was considered a fireproofing miracle and used around the world in homes, offices and factories. It was used to insulate pipes in schools and blended into linoleum. It was hung in ceiling tile and woven into hot pads.
It even was used as artificial snow in the classic movies “The Wizard of Oz” and “White Christmas.”
Then pioneering research by the late Dr. Irving Selikoff of Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York on shipyard workers in the 1960s showed that microscopic, barb-like asbestos fibers can cause lung cancer when inhaled.
As evidence of the danger grew, the United States went on an asbestos-removal binge in schools and public buildings at an estimated cost of $6 billion to $10 billion. The scare also ushered practically the entire U.S. asbestos industry into bankruptcy.
Now, as scientists say the mad scramble to get rid of asbestos was unnecessary, what may be one of the last liability claims has been resolved.
Chicago-based USG Corp. said Monday that its largest subsidiary, wallboard-maker United States Gypsum Co., reached a $111 million settlement with an unidentified insurance carrier on past and future asbestos legal costs.
For USG, the settlement brings down the curtain on an era of claims involving 125 asbestos property damage cases. Ninety-five of those were tried or settled, all for past claims. The 30 remaining cases involve funds for potential future claims.
The asbestos business has turned out to be a costly one to exit. The $111 million settlement is on top of about $465 million that U.S. Gypsum had in insurance coverage for asbestos-related litigation, according to industry analysts.
“Several decades after they stopped manufacturing this stuff, we’ve seen the light at the end of the tunnel,” Jonathan Goldfarb, an analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York, told the Associated Press. “The settlements are a lot of money for USG.”
Other companies paid an even steeper price. Manville Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1982 because of massive asbestos claims and didn’t emerge from court protection until 1988, after it agreed to create a $1.8 billion trust for victims.
Now known as Schuller Corp., the Denver-based company estimates its trust has disbursed $700 million so far.
Another asbestos manufacturer, UNR Industries Inc. of Chicago, was in bankruptcy for 10 years as a result of asbestos claims filed in 1982. It is now largely owned by a trust for victims of asbestos disease.
USG itself was in and out of bankruptcy in 1993, mainly because of debt taken on to fend off a 1988 hostile takeover bid, but asbestos claims added to the liability burden, said company spokesman Matthew Gonring.
As Selikoff’s research team discovered almost 30 years ago, asbestos is definitely a hazardous material, said Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, chairman of community and environmental medicine at the Mt. Sinai Medical Center.
There are three main types of asbestos, and, he pointed out, all three are capable of causing several types of cancers. The most common are lung cancer and cancer of the outside membrane lining of the lung.
As a result of these findings, the nation is now in the final year of a federal phaseout of asbestos products that the Environmental Protection Agency ordered in 1989.
The ban followed a 1982 EPA order requiring inspections for asbestos in schools, and a federal law passed in 1984 requiring asbestos abatement in schools.
The mandates gave rise to an entire subindustry. For instance, the Great Lakes Center for Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago offers more than 100 asbestos training classes a year.
“We’ve been seeing an increased interest from large commercial property owners, or property managers, in having their maintenance people trained,” said Mike Ross, one of the instructors.
But the public’s terrified response to asbestos, in some cases, caused more harm than good.
In one of the worst cases, Mt. Sinai’s Landrigan cited an episode in New Jersey in the 1970s, when parents in the asbestos trade discovered asbestos flaking away in their local school.
“After a couple of weeks of unsuccessful negotiations with the school authorities, they actually rushed into the school on a weekend and tore the stuff out with their bare hands,” he said. “That was a disaster. They exposed themselves. They totally contaminated the school.”
Members of the business community and others also point to asbestos as a classic case of overreaction by government regulators, leading to widespread scares and excessive costs.
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“The issue in any environmental regulation that tries to protect public health always should be: `Does it do more harm than good?’ ” said Kenneth Chilton, director of the Center for Study of American Business in St. Louis.
“In the asbestos case, ignorance could have been bliss,” he added. “Expenditures have been made, not just by the private sector but also the public sector, especially public schools, to essentially deal with a non-problem.”
For decades, the U.S. industry processed 800,000 tons of asbestos a year into insulation, pipe wrapping, tile and some 3,000 other products. It is estimated that more than 30 million tons of asbestos have been used in the United States alone.
Though a carcinogen, asbestos is only a health hazard when it breaks down after weathering or aging into a crumbling, flaky material that resembles snow.
University of Illinois instructor Ross points out there are three ways to deal with asbestos: encapsulation, such as painting over an asbestos surface to keep it from flaking; enclosing it, or repair or removal.
The nation’s initial trend was toward wholesale removal. But experts now say that in most cases, it is best to leave asbestos where it is, undisturbed. Removal is considered in the worst cases, but removing it by untrained workers can release asbestos fibers into the air, where they can be inhaled and pose a health risk.
“I think there was some overreaction at the beginning,” Landrigan said. Now, he added, the country is “on a very reasonable course.”