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I am once again reminding the world that the ancient Romans warned not to buy slaves from asbestos mines because of the health issues they had.
We have known for a very long time that asbestos was bad and we keep using it to this day.
At least we aren't using it to make easy clean tablecloths and napkins that only need to be thrown in a fire to clean...
asbestos mines
TIL asbestos is a naturally-occurring substance (I always thought it was synthetic!)
Yeah, it's a crystal structure and it's really a shame that it causes so many health issues because it's kind of an amazing material otherwise. It's lightweight and strong enough to make bricks with but you can also make flexible fabric out of it, and it can hold up to really impressive amounts of heat. As the poster above said, it is still in use in some industrial applications because in some situations there is no effective alternative.
Of course the problem is that if you damage an asbestos brick or bend an asbestos fabric you get lots of tiny little asbestos fibers that come loose. My understanding is that the fibers are so small that they pierce cell walls and damage DNA strands, hence the cancer.
They're not small enough to directly damage DNA, they get trapped in your tissues and are impossible for your body to remove, and they cause inflammation and scarring. The long term inflammation and scarring is what increases cancer susceptibility
Here we go, found it in the Health Impacts article:
There is experimental evidence that very slim fibers (<60 nm, <0.06 μm in breadth) tangle destructively with chromosomes (being of comparable size). This is likely to cause the sort of mitosis disruption expected in cancer.
And here in MECHANISMS OF ASBESTOS-INDUCED CARCINOGENESIS
It is somewhat more difficult to understand the “chromosome tangling hypothesis.” We recently found that asbestos fibers including crocidolite are actively taken up by several different kinds of cultured cells. Furthermore, those fibers enter both the cytoplasm and the nucleus. In this situation, asbestos fibers may tangle with chromosomes when cells divide. Whether there is a specificity of tangling for any chromosomal region is the next question to be addressed.
So not quite down to the DNA level, but basically chromosomes can get wrapped around asbestos fibers during cell division.
TIL, thank you!
And asbestos is just one form of silica. Silica dust from many sources can cause serious lung problems, e.g. breathing in the dust from cutting granite countertops (which contain silica as quartz) or volcanic dust.
Heck just concrete dust will accumulate and cause chronic health issues. Something I hate knowing when I drive by a construction site and see a bunch of guys cutting foundations with saws, huge plumes of concrete dust, they're just breathing it unfiltered. But no one is playing up the health risks to these folks, and they aren't thinking about how bad it will be at 60 to be on oxygen or dead.
Wood dust also does this. In fact, any little soluble, hard particles of a certain shape and size can get stuck in your lungs and do damage there. They act in a biophysical and not in a biochemical way. Which is why, in several countries, you're required to wear PPE when handling such, or any, powders or dusts.
Forbidden floof
I believe the risks of silicosis from silica were known since ancient times too, although they probably didn't have any solutions or alternatives for it historically. More recently, there was the Hawk's Nest tunnel disaster in the US during the 1930s, where around a 100 mostly black workers died as a result of silicosis developed from cutting and blowing up quartz without any sort of protective measures.
Then in the modern era, there was a ban implemented in Australia of construction using high silica "engineered" stone. You'd think given the known health risks of silica that this could have been predicted, although it's not as clear cut (heh) as the risks of asbestos, since at least part of the problem was construction workers not using preventative measures such as wet drilling and PPE. But you could see how that goes over when the workers are often vulnerable in some way, and do not feel comfortable saying no to their bosses.
...have you heard the latest presidential executive order from the U nited S tates?...
... I picked a bad presidential term to stop smoking
...have some airplane! glue...
What did the Romans use asbestos for?
I found this:
Both the Greeks and the Romans employed asbestos as wicking material for their oil lamps. In fact, the very word “asbestos” comes from a Greek word meaning “inextinguishable.” In a world where lamplight extended work hours, a lamp wick made from chrysotile asbestos would burn almost indefinitely. In addition to lamp wicks, the Greeks and Romans used the long fibers of the serpentine form of asbestos in weaving textiles.
I gave an example, fireplace cleaned napkins and tablecloths.
It was also used in bricks and pottery.
Kent executives patting themselves on the back for making nicotine no longer the worst thing in a cigarette.
The real surprise is that it didn't become the norm, and still legal as long as it has a little warning on the pack, while in the meantime useful medical drugs are banned as "potentially risky"
Useful medical drugs need to prove they are effective before being used. That's not a bad thing. Smoking is a remnant of historical habits before it's dangers were known. The crime is more that we allow it to be used and marketed to new customers. New Zealand has the right idea by increasing the legal age annually but that got shot down.
Allowing drugs to be used without proof would likely lead to more things like smoking causing harm, not less.
Where do you live?
All black countries on this map have banned all use of asbestos.
It had blue asbestos, which is the form most likely to cause mesothelioma. It “protected” smokers by killing them before heart attacks, strokes, or emphysema could. Mission accomplished.
The open wounds in your lungs help the nicotine absorb! The tobacco company is just making sure you get your money's worth!
I often think about what the 2025 equivalent of this is. What are we doing today that we think is helping, but is actually taking us out?
I hate to say it, and I really hope I’m wrong, but sugar substitutes and artificial sweeteners. I myself use them to cut my sugar intake and have resorted to the most naturally occurring option (stevia). I hope there are no long term negative effects once they’ve existed long enough for scientists to study them.
They've studied them for quite a while, and they appear to be pretty safe. Most studies that "show" that they cause cancer were done on rats (a breed of which is notorious for developing cancer) and the amounts given to them were ludicrous, something like drinking multiple cases of diet soda in a day. The only possible issue I've seen so far is that sucralose affects the microbiome, and we don't know enough about the microbiome still to know if it's negative or positive.
IMHO the reduction in calories and sugar greatly outweigh any potential negative impacts if there are any.
fortunately sugar substitutes are one of the most studied substances in the world
Around the late 90's anyone remember Olestra/Olean Chips?
Thankfully warning bells went off for me. Avoided my ass leaking.
I'm scared of something like that happening again.
Social media.
"Oh my god, grandpa! You were just on that all day?! And you let kids use it??! Didn't you know it was bad for you?!"
"Y... Yeah. We kinda knew."
I mean if you get cancer from asbestos it's not tobacco's fault.
An effort was made, I guess...
I remember watching an old 50s info film, I can't find it, where the army had an asbestos burning contest. I can't remember exactly why they were doing it, but it had to be done and they decided to make it a whole thing. People stood right next to the burning barrels stirring occasionally , faces full of soot and what looked about 50 soldiers sitting around cheering. I'm sure they didn't make it to 50.
Are you thinking of the asbestos shoveling competition where they see who can shovel it into a barrel faster?
My favorite podcast, Stuff You Should Know, just did an episode on the invention and history of cigarettes, though they didn't mention this little innovation.
Did they mention the fact that filters include chemicals to make them turn brown in the presence of nicotine smoke? The idea is to create the impression that they're actually capturing lots of noxious goo, when in reality they do virtually nothing as far as negative health effects are concerned.
What in the conspiracy theory?!
Take a drag. Blow the smoke through a tissue. Report back.
Tell me how your lungs felt smoking filterless vs. filtered. Or shall I start?
Yes, they did. This is taken from the transcript of that episode, about 8 minutes in:
Chuck: They changed the pH on that filter to purposefully turn it brown as you smoke, so you look and you see, man, look at all that brown stuff that's not getting into my lungs.
Josh: It fooled me for twenty years. Up until a couple of days ago, I had no idea that that was the case.
Chuck: Yeah, just one of the dirty tricks that cigarette manufacturers used and still used.
They also point out how the filter "is doing something" to reduce what makes it into your body, but not much.
We
Fucking
Loved
That
Shit
Now just imagine the sorts of poisons we're marketed to ingest, inhale or indulge now that there will be news reports about in the future.
These days, it's Plastic, mostly.
But also, the various sugars: corn syrup, etc..
