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Key asbestos findings since 1900
Tuesday, May 30, 2000
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF
1900 -- Asbestos is first recognized as a threat to health.
1972 -- The Occupational Safety and Health Administration sets its first regulations for worker asbestos exposure. Tremolite found as a contaminant in commercial asbestos, and in some talc, gardening products, gravels and sand is specifically included in the regulations.
1974 -- OSHA grants Vanderbilt "temporary relief" from 1972 regulations, based on Vanderbilt's assertion that its ore contains only non-asbestos-like variety of tremolite.
What we found, and what the risks are
December 1976 -- Public Citizen's Health Research Group publishes a report critical of OSHA's exemption of Vanderbilt talc from regulations.
February 1977 -- Public Citizen asks the Consumer Product Safety Commission to ban spackling compounds and other consumer products containing tremolitic talc.
1978 -- CPSC bans spackling compound and "emberizing" compound (fake ashes to sprinkle on logs for gas fires) containing the talc.
1979 -- CPSC proposes regulating asbestos content in consumer products.
Early 1980s -- EPA proposes a ban on all asbestos-containing products. CPSC abandons efforts to regulate asbestos content in consumer products because EPA says it's going to do the job.
Dec. 7, 1983 -- According to Public Citizen, Vanderbilt writes to Asst. Secretary of Occupational Safety and Health Thore Auchter saying it has been victimized by OSHA's inclusive definition of asbestos.
1984 -- OSHA staff meets with representatives of Vanderbilt to discuss "alternative definitions" of asbestos, the watchdog group says.
April 10, 1984 -- OSHA says it intends to adopt mineralogic definition of asbestos, thus excluding Vanderbilt and other tremolite talc producers from regulation. The proposed rule appears to contradict the recommendation of OSHA's Health Standards staff, which advised "insufficient evidence to justify proposing the changes ...recommended by Vanderbilt."
1986 -- EPA concludes that asbestos has the potential to cause cancer at any exposure level.
1986 -- OSHA issues new rules with more stringent standards and specifically includes both asbestiform and non-asbestiform tremolite. However, after pressure from talc and stone industry, OSHA stays new standard with regard to tremolite. (Tremolite remains covered under the old, less stringent standard.)
Oct. 2, 1986 -- Geologist and physician Dr. Mark Germine writes to the New England Journal of Medicine to report tremolite asbestos in sand sold for kids' play boxes.
Dec. 1, 1987 -- Germine petitions CPSC to ban "pulverized and granular limestone products containing more than .01 percent tremolite, including play sands, and certain lawn and garden products."
July 1987 -- Dr. Jerrold Abraham, occupational pathologist at State University of New York at Albany, asks CPSC to recall all asbestos-containing play sand products after he finds tremolite in play sand.
1987 -- CPSC contracts with investigators to test play sand. One says it contains asbestos. Another says it contains only non-asbestos variety of tremolite.
May 1988 -- CPSC refuses to recall play sand, saying the tremolite does not represent a health threat.
1989 -- EPA issues a ruling prohibiting the manufacturing, importation, processing, and distribution of most asbestos-containing products.
October 1991 -- A federal court overturns EPA's ban on asbestos products. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says the EPA did not adequately assess the economic effects of the ban.
1994 -- OSHA revises its rules, specifically eliminating non-asbestiform tremolite from regulation.
2000 -- Almost all asbestos-containing products can be legally sold, and many are not labeled. But the CPSC, reacting to consumer concerns after the Post-Intelligencer's stories about asbestos contamination in Libby, Mont., says it will resume examination of consumer products for asbestos content.
Sources: OSHA, NIOSH, Public Citizen, R.T. Vanderbilt
1975 -- National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health publishes studies showing increased incidence of lung cancer in miners who work in the New York talc mines of R.T. Vanderbilt Co. The company commissions its own study, which contradicts NIOSH.
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