Many of us knew back then what catastrophe now causes the EPA to fess up about asbestos
"The asbestos threat appears to be overrated, and the billions spent on removal projects wasted." So I wrote in this space way back in April 1990, inspired by a report in the January 1990 edition of Science magazine concluding the health hazard presented by casual exposure to asbestos building products was miniscule to nonexistent. Various public policy commentators made the same case, but common sense was drowned out by the combined forces of junk science, bureaucratic inertia and news media blather.
Asbestos became the bogeyman of the hour -- make that of approximately two decades. The average American believes it to be one of the most poisonous substances known to man because the EPA told them so, and commanded public and private building owners to spend billions upon billions of dollars trying to remove every last speck of the evil fluff from indoor environments.
