Just as the serious dangers of mercury and lead were underplayed for many years, a similar lack of attention surrounded the use of asbestos. Asbestos is a naturally occurring material made up of microscopic bundles of fibers that can become airborne when disturbed. When these fibers are released into the air, they may be inhaled into the lungs, where they are capable of causing significant health problems.

The first recorded use of asbestos was by the Greeks who valued its fire retardant properties, but they also noted its ill effect on the lungs of slaves who were assigned to weave it into cloth. During the Middle Ages, asbestos fell out of favor, but it became popular again during the Industrial Revolution when it was used to insulate steam pipes, boilers, kilns, and ovens. The negative effect on human health was either ignored or forgotten.

According to the Asbestos Resource Center, the first time researchers began to note that asbestos workers were suffering common--and often deadly--health problems was in 1917-18, when men in mining communities began dying of lung problems. In England in 1924, a 33-year-old British woman who had worked with asbestos since she was 13 died of a lung ailment that her doctor identified as asbestosis, a condition where the asbestos fibers become trapped in the lungs and make it difficult to breathe. As a result of this diagnosis, the British government undertook a study of asbestos workers. In 1931, Britain deemed that asbestosis was a legitimate work-related disease and passed a law that required asbestos plants to have better ventilation to try to reduce human exposure to the fibers.

In the United States, manufacturing companies took another 10 years to implement similar rules in industries dealing with asbestos. Though the dangers of working with asbestos were recognized, no one focused on the fact that it also might be hazardous to people whose exposure was environmental and not work-related. Over time, scientists began to see that in locations where the asbestos became damaged or disturbed in some way, it could be harmful to people's health. In what was a rather slow response to this news, there was some reduction in the dependence on asbestos during the 1970s, but it was not until 1989 that laws were put in place to restrict the use of asbestos in building materials. Then, in 1991, the laws were weakened. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans overturned the EPA ruling that more severely limited the use of asbestos. The court left in place the banning of flooring felt, rollboard (a product used to create ceilings and walls in primarily commercial construction), and corrugated, commercial, or specialty paper, and banned the use of asbestos in any new uses.

Today, most schools, office buildings, and homes that are undergoing some level of renovation must first hire a company to perform asbestos abatement, which involves creating a sealed tentlike workspace and workers dressed in spacesuit-type gear to go in and remove the asbestos in the area where work is to be done. . .

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