THOMAS W. KELTY, Chief Counsel,
Illinois Municipal League

THE LAMB THAT ROARED

No product in history has had dual impacts upon American society comparable to asbestos. This mineral has been instrumental in great advances in manufacturing, architecture and public safety. It has also played a central role in the deaths of thousands of Americans and the economic devastation of communities and once powerful commercial entities.

In construction, asbestos has hundreds of uses. It is found in most places where heat resistance is important. Examples include pipe covering, boiler blankets and insulation, and fireproofing. Asbestos fibers are also mixed into floor tiles, ceiling tiles, wall and ceiling plasters, paints, grouts, acoustical tiles and other materials.

Once manufactured, a large number of asbestos products find their way into buildings. Those products often pose a serious danger to the occupants and users of a building. Consequently, the end user of asbestos products, the building owner, faces serious consequences from the presence of asbestos-containing materials in his building. Once asbestos is found in a building, the building owner must be cognizant of its consequences in terms of regulation, liability and cost recovery. That owner could be a municipality.

This article is the first of three parts to discuss the health, regulatory, liability and corrective aspects of the asbestos problem. This seemingly innocent mineral with its wide variety of uses has been stripped of its innocent lamb-like character and has been exposed as the denizen that it is. The potential impact to municipalities, other units of government and any owner of any building where asbestos has been used is frightening and staggering.

THE HEALTH DANGERS OF ASBESTOS

The owner of a building infested with friable asbestos is saddled with a serious environmental problem. Asbestos material is considered "friable" when it is in such a state that individual asbestos fibers may become airborne. Exposure to airborne asbestos fibers is extremely hazardous.

Asbestos is a generic term referring to a group of naturally occurring mineral fibers of high tensile strength and resistance to heat. The fibers were created early in the Earth's history when deposits of sedimentary rock were subjected to enormous heat and pressure from nearby volcanic activity. The resulting types of fibers vary greatly in flexibility and size, but share a common characteristic. When broken, the material retains its fibrous shape. It is possible to separate a single asbestos fiber into hundreds of thinner fibers. Carried to the extreme, these fibers will break down into microscopic fibers so tiny that they remain airborne for weeks at a time.

Once these small fibers become airborne, they may be inhaled. Once inhaled, many of the fibers are expelled when a person exhales. Due to their tiny size, however, the fibers are swept into the deepest parts of the lung, where many become deeply embedded into the lung tissue. Because of the sharp points of the fibers, they tend to become more deeply embedded in the tissue of the lung as time goes by.

This injury to the lung tissue may result in a variety of maladies. The most notable are asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma. Asbestosis is the best known disease associated with asbestos exposure and results in the growth of fibrous scar tissue throughout the lung. The condition impairs lung function in two ways. First, it reduces the elasticity of the lung tissue, thereby interfering with the victim's ability to draw breath. It also interferes with the transport of oxygen from the air sacs in the lung to the blood in the capillaries where oxygen is then carried out of the tissue. Thus, each breath that the victim is able to draw does less good.

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The onset of asbestosis generally follows a long latency period, typically twenty (20) years or more after the first exposure. The disease is generally considered "dose — responsive". This means that the likelihood of developing the disease increases with the level of exposure. This general rule must be tempered, however, by the fact that susceptibility to the disease varies widely between individuals. Some people will develop the disease after minimal exposure to asbestos, while others will have no symptoms after massive, repeated exposures.

Once the disease begins its course, it is progressive in nature and will continue to worsen even if exposure to asbestos has ceased. The victim slowly loses all lung function and eventually dies. Because of the slow progress of the disease and the long latency period, most victims die of other causes brought about by advancing age. The debilitating effects of the disease certainly shorten the life-span, while drastically reducing the quality of life.

Lung cancer is a disease which can be caused by many factors. A major cause of carcinoma of the lung is exposure to asbestos. The mortality rate from this cancer is very great. Five years after onset of the cancer, only five percent of the victims will still be living. Although there is a dose-responsive relationship between exposure to asbestos and carcinoma of the lung, there is no known threshold of exposure, beneath which it may be predicted that lung cancer will not occur.

With lung cancer, there is a synergistic relationship between smoking and asbestos exposure. The incidence of lung cancer in nonsmokers exposed to asbestos is five times the normal rate. The rate for smokers not exposed to asbestos is ten times normal. When smokers are exposed to asbestos, the risk of lung cancer is not the sum of these two factors, but the product; the incidence of lung cancer in these people is fifty (50) times the normal rate.

Mesothelioma is a very rare form of cancer. It involves either the pleura, which is the lining of the lung, or the peritoneum, which is the lining of the body

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cavity. It is always fatal, death usually occurring six to fifteen months after the onset of the disease. The disease generally follows a latency period of at least fifteen years. The disease's only known cause is asbestos exposure. There is no safe threshold of exposure; a single incident of low level exposure can cause the disease. Several studies have suggested that casual exposure has, in fact, caused the disease.

Tens of millions of people are exposed to asbestos-containing products. The uses for asbestos in construction are virtually limitless. Its strength, resistance to heat and corrosives and its flexibility made it useful for any type of product. In this century, over thirty (30) million tons of asbestos have been used in the United States. Asbestos has been used to insulate heating and cooling sterns, to strengthen cement, to fireproof ceiling and floor tiles, to insulate electrical wiring, to absorb sound in acoustical plasters, to add texture to paint, to protect steel beams from fire and for hundreds of other uses. Because of its versatility and utility, some form of asbestos product is likely to be found in any building over ten thousand square feet because many building codes required the use of asbestos products in various parts of buildings.

The exposure of these building users and occupants is of a different nature than that experienced by the asbestos mill worker or the installer of asbestos products. The occupant of a building is exposed to constant low levels of asbestos fibers. These fibers get into the air as asbestos-containing products break down with age, or suffer damage. Although asbestos fibers last forever, the binders or glues holding the fibers together will deteriorate over time. This deterioration may be hastened by physical damage occasioned through physical contact or water contact. As the binder deteriorates, the fibers are released. Because the manufacturing process tends to break many of the fibers to microscopic size, much of the asbestos becomes airborne and some circulates throughout the building, exposing the occupants at generally lower levels.

The fact that the exposure is, compared to a factory environment, low level, does not mean that it is a safe level of exposure. As previously discussed, there is no

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safe level of exposure to asbestos. Low level exposures can be deadly. A recent epidemiological study revealed that persons having incidental exposure to asbestos, by virtue of living within a few miles of an asbestos textile mill, had a several hundred fold increase in the likelihood of contracting mesothelioma. Hundreds of persons within the area were afflicted, where statistically no such cases were predicted. There are also medical histories that suggest that a casual exposure in the office setting may lead to the development of nondose responsive disorders. An office worker at a federally owned building in Ohio recently established, to the satisfaction of a jury, that her case of mesothelioma was caused by her exposure to asbestos fireproofing in the building. Low level exposures are causing injury and disease in the building environment.

Next month, in Part II of this series, the regulatory and legislative responses to the asbestos epidemic will be discussed. In the final part, potential responses to an asbestos problem will be discussed. These responses include: (i) the abatement of a hazard and the associated costs, (ii) potential finding sources available to effect abatement costs, and (iii) defense of liability claims against the building owners including use of the Tort Immunity Act.

This problem has potential adverse consequences for all units of government in Illinois and throughout the nation. The health hazard created to all persons exposed to asbestos dictates that any building owner carefully consider the potential problem in any facility. A quick response to the problem can help avoid both the health and liability consequences and the potentially extreme financial impact to a building owner. •

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