Deregulating Safety: The Case of the Effort to Ban Asbestos

Our plain-English summary of Deregulating Safety: The Case of the Effort to Ban Asbestos, by D. Rosner (The Milbank Quarterly, 2017).

The study

• Author: D. Rosner
• Journal: The Milbank Quarterly
• Published: 2017;95(2):257-260
• Type of article: Historical article
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text

In plain English

This is an opinion article (op-ed) by David Rosner, not a research study, and it reports no new data. The author described asbestos as perhaps the best-documented industrial toxin and wrote that it has been shown to cause asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma. The author wrote that it was still found in construction materials, imported brake pads and millions of homes and workplaces. The author blamed private industry trade groups for stifling efforts by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to restrict asbestos. The author noted that Canada had passed legislation to ban asbestos by 2018. The author also explained that under a new US chemical safety law, the EPA had to evaluate asbestos within 3 years and, if it found an unreasonable risk, act to mitigate or potentially ban it within 2 more years. The author argued that the Trump administration threatened this effort. As evidence, the author cited EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's evasive answer at his confirmation hearing and President Trump's published statements that asbestos was "100 percent safe." The author concluded that the movement to end asbestos use might be doomed.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Opinion article (op-ed); no original research
• Who was studied: No study population; the article discusses asbestos regulation in the United States and Canada
• Exposure: Asbestos in general, in products such as construction materials and imported brake pads and in existing buildings
• Main results:
  • The author stated that asbestos remains in millions of homes, offices, gas stations and repair shops (an argument, not a study finding)
  • The author stated that US agency efforts to restrict asbestos have been stifled by private industry trade groups
  • The author noted that Canada recently passed legislation to ban asbestos use by 2018
  • The author explained that under the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, a risk evaluation of asbestos must be completed within 3 years, with possible mitigation or a ban within 2 more years
  • The author described EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt as answering evasively when asked by Senator Cory Booker whether he would allow the EPA to ban asbestos
  • The author cited President Trump's 1997 book as saying asbestos got a "bad rap" and was "100 percent safe"
• The authors' conclusion: The author predicted that, given the attitudes of President Trump and EPA Administrator Pruitt, the movement to end the use of asbestos is doomed

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Asbestosis.

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• The contribution of environmental monitoring in the epidemiological assessment of exogenous risk. The experience of ARPA in the Emilia-Romagna Region of Italy — A. Zavatti, P. Lauriola (1999)
• Commentary: environmental disease--a preventable epidemic — P.J. Landrigan (1992)
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