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#1341369 - 04/27/12 08:30 PM
Fiberglass as bad as asbestos
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VM Smith
Diamond Member
Registered: 11/28/05
Posts: 34619
Loc: Reality
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I put this in "health" but also put it here as a heads up to homeowners and others who work with fiberglass insulation to take adequate precautions, and who might not read it in the health thread:
Fiberglass fibers cause lung diseases and cancer
Thursday, April 26, 2012 by: Paul Fassa
860 [Share this Article]
(NaturalNews) The case against asbestos in building materials was finalized after decades of research traced several severe lung cancer incidents to asbestos poisoning. Now fiberglass, the replacement for asbestos, is under similar scrutiny for the same reasons.
Independent researchers at Cornell University discovered that sick building syndrome (SBS), which causes many occupants to suffer similar health issues, occurred mostly in recently built airtight structures without adequate internal air cleaning systems. They ran out of research funds and couldn't continue.
A couple of decades ago, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), a medical wing of the Department of Labor, made an alarming discovery regarding man made mineral fibers (fiberglass). They determined that the fibers created DNA damage, which leads to chronic illness and is carcinogenic.
An anti-regulatory Congress that encouraged the rapid rise of biotech industries, such as Monsanto, threatened to abolish NIOSH around that time. Meanwhile, the large suppliers of fiberglass insulation claim they've done their own research.
They publicly assert all is well and reports to the contrary are based on faulty research. The foxes are in the hen house.
A whistleblower claims fiberglass fibers are as dangerous as asbestos
Paul Ayers was a Certified Hazardous Materials Supervisor involved with the removal of industrial hazardous waste for several years. He quoted a 1974 position paper by Dr. Mearl Stanton of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) that was sent to a non-profit activist group called Victims of Fiberglass.
That quote is: "asbestos causes cancer not because it is asbestos, but because it is a Respirable Durable Fiber (RDF). RDFs completely unrelated to asbestos such as fiberglass and rock wool are equally carcinogenic."
Dr. Mearl Stanton stated later in 1977 that it's not the physical property of the fibers, but their sizes and shapes that determine hazards to the lungs. When long, thin sharp fibers are inhaled, they can deeply penetrate sensitive lung tissues and begin a process leading to emphysema, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder), or cancer.
Animal testing in Scotland and Switzerland proved that certain fiberglass types used in the aerospace industry can even cause mesothelioma, the dreaded, aggressive lung cancer that is attributed to breathing in asbestos fibers.
Fiberglass actually comes from glass. Microscopic glass shards are created from sand in special furnaces then coated with phenol-formaldehyde and urea-formaldehyde resins. It's used in those pink rolls of insulation you've seen on construction sites or TV commercials. There is also the loose pink foamy stuff that can be sprayed into attics for insulation.
Even cigarette filters have used fiber glass. Instead of protecting against nicotine, the tiny shards from the filters can cut into the lungs and allow more nicotine to penetrate the lungs. There have been tooth pastes using fiber glass fibers as abrasives. The tiny coated shards cut the gums enough to allow toothpaste fluoride to penetrate directly into the bloodstream.
When it comes to solid fiberglass items, the workers in those manufacturing plants have the highest exposure from working and sanding fiberglass products. But where does all that fiberglass dust go from those plants? Paul Ayers and the Victims of Fiberglass point to an increase in outdoor airborne fiberglass fibers in some areas.
Fiberglass insulation is used throughout office buildings, apartment buildings, and homes. You can check your home or office for airborne fiberglass content by partially taping over central air vents. Take the tape off and look for tiny shiny particles with a flashlight.
The fiberglass industry is circling their wagons, and you can't rely on government agencies. Protect your health yourself (source below).
Sources for this article include:
Health advice for fiberglass exposure site http://www.sustainableenterprises.com/fin/Health/dna.htm
http://preventdisease.com
http://www.nytimes.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiberglass
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/035686_fiberglass_lung_diseae_cancer.html#ixzz1tI3QPRuW
_________________________
It's never too late to be who you might have been.
George Elliot
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#1341444 - 04/28/12 12:10 PM
Re: Fiberglass as bad as asbestos
[Re: MeRightYouWrong]
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VM Smith
Diamond Member
Registered: 11/28/05
Posts: 34619
Loc: Reality
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I had friends that worked removing asbestos and they were told how fiberglass and asbestos were equally damaging, and why.
The wider broadcasting of the warning is great news, but it unfortunately and almost certainly comes too late for some workers, who may have assumed that, since government didn't immediately, as soon as it must have known of the danger of fiberglass and rock wool, get equally as hysterical and proscriptive as it did about asbestos, the former were not hazardous.
I don't know, but am suspicious that the case was simply that Johns Manville didn't grease as many palms as, possibly, Owens Corning or PPG. Stranger things have happened.
How about an institutional, "hysterically green" anti-mining bias? Government has been known to whip up a public hysteria, and then get out front, where the "saviors" ride, and "lead" public opinion.
Bottom line, and the impetus of my original posts, is that asbestos is not something akin to plutonium; it's not the chemical composition and activity of it that counts, but the fact that many kinds of jagged and tiny particles are hazardous to our lungs, so be careful, all.
I've been thinking about it ever since I swapped smoking for vaping, 2 years ago. While the 4,000+ chemicals in cig smoke tar, including the heavy metals, lead, mercury, and cadmium, as well as the radioactive radon, lead 210, and polonium 210 certainly cause much toxic chemical damage, people often don't enough consider the physical effect of smoke particles (ash, really) that smoke puts into the lungs. I know I feel 1000% better without that load. Without the physical matter actually filling the lungs (instead, there's a water-soluble solution of condensed vapor) it got easier to breath in about 3 days, and the improvement continued for months, as at least some of that stuff flushed out.
_________________________
It's never too late to be who you might have been.
George Elliot
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