Only an incidental aside to rail preservation by now, but:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/l ... 35,00.html

"A new look at X-rays used to help win billions of dollars for asbestos victims detected abnormalities in only 4.5 percent of the X-rays - not in 96 percent, as medical experts intitially testified.

The study by Johns Hopkins University radiologists found that medical experts who testified on behalf of plaintiffs in asbestos suits almost always found something suspicious on their X-rays, whether it was asbestos dust or a likely malignant tumor.

But six disinterested radiologists asked to review the same 492 chest X-rays found something wrong only 4.5 percent of the time.

The study was published in this week's Academic Radiology journal and was accompanied by an editorial calling on radiologists to "repair the breech" in integrity and restore the honor of radiology."

More on this story at the Nature article linked below. The story is getting major play in Denver, home to Johns-Manville, a former major asbestos supplier.



"Nature" article
LNER4472-NOSPAM-@bcpl.net

The "radiologists" were tools of the class action lawyers who made over a billion (with a B) dollars on this scam. Now one is running for Vice President.

Much of the real asbestosis came from WWII shipyards where the federal government ordered the use of chrysotile and the amphiboles (in pastes) in an attempt to fireproof ships. Miners and asbestos workers needed to have 5+ years of heavy exposure to develop tumors. Said government took little or no responsibility for this, hence the lawyers' feeding frenzy on private suppliers.

Long fiber Canadian chrysotile composed about 15% of the magnesia block used in locomotive -- and other boiler -- insulation. The real danger in handling magnesia block is negligible. By law you can't do it anyway.

As much as I like money, it is situations like this that bring to mind the old saw about the "root of all evil."

Folks:

While the number of individuals affected by asbestos may be overstated, that does not indicate that the danger of actual exposure is similarly hyped.

(I really despise that part of the legal guild that acts as though the services of its cartel were endeavors selfless, if not personally injurious acts, on par with being crucified. It appears more and more that the primary skill applied in the practice of their craft is mendacity)

There is substantial danger from exposure to asbestos. My uncle worked at Johns-Manville in the early 1960’s in New Jersey for the short period of a FEW MONTHS. Three decades later, he was settling down to retirement with the wife and grandkids, still working out with weights and take brisk walks when he noticed he couldn’t keep his normal trim 180 or so pounds on. A little more than a year later, he was bedridden, less than 130 and then passed away one morning unable to breathe. A chest X-ray revealed a tumor and the first question the doctor asked after receiving the biopsy report was “were you exposed to asbestos”

To be fair, he was a smoker when exposed (though he had given it up decades before passing) and the doctor explained the smoking increases the risk of asbestos related pathologies geometrically, since the destruction of the cilia allows the imbedding of friable fibers where they sit for decades before igniting cancer in the delicate tissues of the lung. The doctor also explained that asbestos related cancers tend to be aggressive and of course any lung cancer is dangerous because of the risk of metastasis (spreading). Secondly, he may have made a critical mistake in foregoing more aggressive treatment in hopes that the first rounds would be successful in eradicating or at least controlling the disease.

Please donÂ’t take this stuff lightly. You can never be completely free of potential exposure when dealing with old steam engines or trolleys, but thereÂ’s no need to take additional unnecessary risks.

When old ‘97 needs asbestos abatement, call a certified disposal contractor that disposes of it properly to protect yourself and keep a copy of the waste manifest to protect your organization. If somebody suggests that you can do it cheaper yourself or they “know how to get rid of it”, don’t bet on it. The wager might be your life. This is one case where you better not know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

As an aside, IÂ’m not suggesting that previous posters were advocating unnecessary exposure or improper disposal. We all know that the first part of safety is a healthy respect for danger.


superheater62@yahoo.com

Yes, exposure to hazardous stuff is bad. But a sense of perspective is still necessary.

Most of the exposure that predicated these illnesses were in a different era--the same era that produced black lung in miners, white lung in cotton mill workers, etc. And yes, you can still find bad work places today. Not long ago I "blew the whistle" on a workplace that was having workers remove adhesive from Lexan panels with acetone--being applied with rags and bare hands, in the open.

However, at one point I had a chance to flip through stacks upon stacks of Johns-Manville settlement case files. (The leading litigant in the asbestos litigation history is attorney and Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos, now a billionaire thanks to his massive class-action suits.) And for every gruesome case of a 20-year asbestos miner or shipyard worker, I saw three or four cases being brought that involved, for example, three months in a railroad back shop or the wife of a worker that washed her husband's dusty clothes, or even the child of a worker. The vast majority of the files I saw were generic lung cancer first and one of three asbestos-related diseases in conjunction, and the vast majority of all the claimants--perhaps 95%--were heavy smokers.

Those records, by the way, took up most of a multi-level warehouse in the Washington DC area--millions of file folders, most of them containing simply a claim and few of them containing corroborating evidence such as doctor's records or X-rays. In not one single case that I saw did I see confirmation of the diagnosis via autopsy, even though a fair number of the claimants died while awaiting settlement.

And THAT was against but ONE company.

At some point one has to look skeptically at the entire operation and wonder how much it resembles 78 people claiming injuries in the crash of a bus that holds 40.

And if you want to see my other experiences with the asbestos "panic", search this archive for more tales of mine involving specific locomotives.

"Nature" article
LNER4472-NOSPAM-@bcpl.net

OK guys, we are not the litigation forum, or the tort reform forum, or the lawyer or doctor or other profession bashing forum for that matter.

Removal of asbestos from preserved railway equipment is covered by Federal regualtions. The regs are not likely to change any time soon. The larger implications of the asbestos issue beyond that are really outside our ambit here.

eledbetter@rypn.org

> Removal of asbestos from preserved railway
> equipment is covered by Federal regualtions.
> The regs are not likely to change any time
> soon. The larger implications of the
> asbestos issue beyond that are really
> outside our ambit here.

*Not really.

The regulations may or may not change, and for the most part the damage (primarily financial) has already been done to the owners of any rail equipment "contaminated" by asbestos. However, asbestos is still largely treated as an evil bogeyman by the general public, and the danger still exists of NIMBYs demanding the removal of "that dangerous locomotive covered in toxic asbestos"--and a city council agreeing to scrap the problem rather than clean it up. So what needs to change is the public's perception of the problem. And if the public, through better awareness of the totality of the asbestos hazard and the situation surrounding the litigations, comes to associate asbestos with "greedy lawyers" instead of "toxic time bombs out to kill us all", the preservation projects that still confront asbestos problems in the future may have an easier time of it.


LNER4472-NOSPAM-@bcpl.net