Asbestos turns up in toys, children's clay

[Lone_Star_Dem]

Source: Seattle PI

Asbestos has been found in a variety of consumer products, including one of this season's biggest-selling Christmas toys, according to the nation's largest asbestos victims organizations.

The CSI Fingerprint Examination Kit, two brands of children's play clay, powdered cleanser, roof sealers, duct tapes, window glazing, spackling paste and small appliances were among the products in which asbestos was found by at least two of three labs hired by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization.

The group, which was created in 2004 by asbestos victims and their families, spent more than $165,000 to have government-certified laboratories examine hundreds of consumer products over 18 months to determine whether asbestos was present.

It is unusual for a group of volunteers, many of whom have asbestos-caused diseases, to fund research that impacts public health.

Read more: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/341381_asbestos28.html?source=mypi

---

A short list of the items found to contain asbestos.

* CSI Fingerprint Examination Kit (asbestos in both the white and glowing powders)
* Art Skills' Clay Bucket
* Three varieties of Ja-Ru Toy Clay
* Scotch High Performance Duct Tape and its All Weather Duct Tape
* DAP Crack Shot Spackling Paste and DAP's 33 Window Glazing
* Gardner Leak Stopper

3M and DAP both denied using asbestos in their products.

[Frank Cannon]

1. Three guesses as to what country this shit is made in.

And the first two don't count.

I remember joking all the time about "cheap Japanese junk" when I was a kid. I take it all back.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

2. Actually they're manufactured in various countries

Which include China, Canada, and Thailand. I haven't been able to find out which one comes from where, however.

It would seem to me that some of the products said to contain asbestos have a much greater chance of being inhaled, i.e. fingerprint dust & spackling. I can't understand why products that will have airborne particles wouldn't be regulated/tested for something such as asbestos.

[Gold Metal Flake]

3. I don't understand how the asbestos gets in to a product if it's not by design.

One does not simply knock over an old can of Asbestos Helper into a mixer tub of spackle at the factory. Any ingredient is documented, it is called out on the design sheets and travelers, any drawing will have a parts list that lists ingredients and components with the relevent specifications (sometimes MIL or ANSI specs or ASTM test data) and it all gets signed off by various departments.

If asbestos is in any new product, it is there by design.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

5. I'm sure it's not by accident.

As you said it's not something that could show up in products except by design.

What we don't know is if it's a choice made by the creators of said products or if their original recipe is altered once it goes into production.

[Ian David]

6. I suppose the asbestos in the children's clay MIGHT have been naturally occurring. MAYBE.

At least THIS time it's not excessive naturally occurring Uranium.

[Xithras]

27. Talc

Talc, or talcum powder, often contains trace amounts of asbestos. This is because both types of mineral are descended from serpentine, which is common around the world. It's very difficult to mine asbestos without mixing in trace amounts of talc, and it's very difficult to mine talc without mixing in trace amounts of asbestos. The two are simply too closely related, and it's very common for them to be somewhat mixed in a natural state. There is no way to "filter" asbestos from talc either...to make asbestos free talc, the solution is simply to find an asbestos free talc deposit. That's usually done for things like baby powder, but asbestos-tested talc is expensive and isn't usually a concern where the talc is going to be used as an ingredient, and the final product will not be inhalable.

This was all pretty well hashed out back when the crayon scare came to light.

[Eurobabe]

4. It's no wonder our kidz is so stoopid

and have diseases out the wahoo! Screw the toys, let them play with the boxes! This is mother nature trying to tell all parents to stop buying shit for their kids and make them go outside in the fresh air. Make sure they watch out for those killer SUVs though.

I heard yesterday that ricketts is on the rise in the USA because youngsters don't get enough exercise, sunlight and milk products (although I am somewhat suspicious that the Dairy Council pushed the last item.)

Bush must have played with a heck of alot of clay as a child.

[XemaSab]

7. It was actually put forth that he ate too much lead paint.

I don't have a source, though. :(

[Eurobabe]

8. So lead paint with an asbestos chaser, yummy!!

[NYC]

14. Milk is fortified with Vitamin D.

That is specifically to prevent ricketts. In the "old" days, a lot of children got ricketts because of a lack of sunshine (especially in tenement slums). To prevent ricketts, milk was fortified with Vitamin D.

[merwin]

9. Great, after you play with your new CSI Fingerprint Examination Kit, the real CSI can

come and examine why you mysteriously came down with cancer!

Fun for the whole family!

[lumpy]

10. Isn't inhaling asbestos particles the problem with using it ?

Duct tape ?

[Lone_Star_Dem]

11. I suppose when you rip it it may release particles?

I have no idea how much, but I guess if you use it often enough in your work that may, perhaps be a problem.

As I said above I can see where the spackling and the CSI fingerprint dust would be health issues. Some of the others, such as the clay, (how does something embedded in clay become airborne?) made little sense to me.

[newscott]

12. Maybe when the kids drop it on the floor

it dries and then gets vacuumed up. Thereby releasing particles?

[Lone_Star_Dem]

13. I hadn't considered that.

I suppose that is possible. Thanks for pointing it out to me.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

15. You know, we should all recycle

but sometimes it does get out of hand!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. It's like the Great Crayon Asbestos Scare of 2000.

Who needs stories when people only read the headlines?

[w4rma]

17. The story matches the headline in this case. (nt)

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

18. And they also match the Great Crayon Asbestos Scare.

And it's set to the sound of knees jerking.

[w4rma]

19. I don't know what you are talking about, but I know there are a serious lack of regulations. (nt)

[Lone_Star_Dem]

22. Not really

First let me say that I wonder if the asbestos found in some of these products is even a risk. I've mentioned that in post above also. I'm suspicious of how it can be released from the clay to become airborne, and for that matter how much of it could be released from the duct tape. Just to give two examples.

Now for the difference from this and the Great Crayon Asbestos Scare of 2000.

The testing in 2000 was originally done by one lab, and one lab only, and was commissioned by a Seattle newspaper that was looking for a story. I'm sure they were 'shocked' when they found one.

In this case a non-profit group sent more than 250 items to three labs for testing. A few of them showed positive readings at more than two of the government-certified laboratories.

Having said that, it still isn't clear at what levels the asbestos was present, or to what degree it could possibly be a health risk.

[cosmicdot]

20. Scotch High Performance Duct Tape

Help!



Who expected the terrorism to come in what we're suppose to use to save us from terrorism?

[graywarrior]

25. Hey!

[cosmicdot]

29. and, I thank you for keeping that gif alive

:hi:

[rocktivity]

21. Let's hear it for deregulation

(crickets)

x(
rocknation

[seemslikeadream]

23. Asbestos Halliburton

Asbestos
Halliburton subsidiaries DII Industries, LLC (formerly known as Dresser Industries) and Kellogg Brown & Root, Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2003 for the purpose of minimizing asbestos liability. Halliburton purchased DII Industries in 1998 under the direction of former CEO Dick Cheney. The acquisition meant that Halliburton inherited 300,000 asbestos claims filed against DII, who had for years manufactured construction products which contained the harmful substance. Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root also had manufactured products containing asbestos and has been fighting asbestos lawsuits since 1976. Asbestos causes scarring of the lung tissue (asbestosis), cancer of the pleural lining (mesothelioma) and lung cancer. Victims allege the companies knew of the health risks of asbestos long before they took it off the market.

The bankruptcy proceedings halted all personal injury lawsuits arising from the asbestos claims. If the bankruptcies are approved in court, Halliburton plans to contribute settlement amounts to a trust fund for the benefit of afflicted plaintiffs. A settlement agreement was reached with plaintiffs in December 2002 and, if approved by a judge in Pittsburgh, PA, will settle all present and future asbestos claims against Halliburton. The settlement, expected in May 2004, would require Halliburton to finance a victims trust fund with up to $2.5 billion in cash, 59.5 million shares of Halliburton common stock, notes worth $52 million (valued on December 31, 2003), and insurance proceeds, if any, between $2.3 billion and $3.0 billion as received by DII Industries and Kellogg Brown & Root.

Recent efforts in Congress to ban lawsuits against asbestos manufacturers and to limit their liability could mean Halliburton will receive a sweeter deal from Congress than from its proposed court settlement. The December 19, 2002 Washington Post reported, "The Republican victory in the November <2002> elections has increased the chances that some sort of national tort reform might be enacted, perhaps limiting damage recoveries ." But in April 2004, the Senate blocked proposed legislation that would have banned lawsuits against asbestos companies. The legislation would have established a $124 billion asbestos trust fund to compensate victims nationally while canceling the pending lawsuits. Many victims are vehemently opposed to such legislation, saying the proposed $124 billion trust fund is too small to finance all of the claims currently pending in court. Asbestos victims told the Chicago Tribune that the legislation is a sweet deal for Halliburton and "a bailout for reckless companies who knew of the risks from asbestos."

Halliburton's asbestos-related bankruptcies resulted in a pre-tax charge of $1.016 billion in the fourth quarter of 2003. So, while Halliburton's revenues have skyrocketed because of war in the middle east, its bottom line continues to suffer. It lost $820 million for all of 2003 and $65 million during the first quarter of 2004, all because of bankruptcies related to asbestos lawsuits.


http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/080400-02.htm
Halliborton: An oil-industry giant
Headquarters: Dallas
1999 sales: $14.89 billion
1999 employees: 103,000
1999 market value: $17.79 billion


A timeline:

1924: Founded by Erle Halliburton
1950-1980: Expanded rapidly, acquiring many other oil-services companies, including Houston construction giant Brown & Root, an expert in offshore platforms.
1982: Halved its work force as the oil industry slumped.
1985: Brown & Root paid $750 million to settle mismanagement charges at South Texas Nuclear Project.
1990s: Halliburton expanded dramatically overseas, particularly in the Mideast and Southeast Asia.
1995: Former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney became chief executive officer. Company won contract to provide services to U.S. Army peacekeeping troops in the Balkans.
1996: Won contract to develop Canadian offshore oil field.
1998: Nearly doubled in size with $7.7 billion purchase of Dresser Industries.
1998-99: Cut more than 9,000 employees in another industry downturn.
2000: Chief Executive Cheney nominated as GOP vice presidential candidate.

http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200404/042004a.html
Another fundamental unfairness in this bill is that it provides a corporate bailout for certain companies with serious asbestos liabilities. For example, Halliburton, which has about $4.8 billion in total asbestos liability, would only pay $75 million a year under this bill to a national trust fund. This bill relieves Halliburton of all of its $4.8 billion in asbestos liability but requires it to pay a total over 24 years of only $1.2 billion in present value. This financial windfall to Halliburton is not fair.

W.R. Grace, the company responsible for poisoning an entire community from its asbestos mining facility in Libby, Montana, would get another financial windfall under this bill. W.R. Grace has total asbestos liabilities of about $3.1 billion but it makes yearly payments under this bill of only $27 million. This bill relieves W.R. Grace of all of its $3.1 billion in asbestos liability but requires it to pay a total over 24 years of only $424 million in present value. This financial windfall to W.R. Grace is not fair.





Thanks LeftHander

LeftHander (1000+ posts) Fri Aug-06-04 01:50 PM
Response to Original message
18. Asbestos keeps cropping up....
Ahhhhh asbestos....I am keenly interested in asbestos....

1999 Halliburton CEO - Cheney aquires Dresser (Harbison-Walker)

Dresser is a longtime Bush family company.

These companies were steeped in the Asbestos quagmire. At the edge of ruin. 200,000 asbestos claims that could reach 2-3 million a piece.

In June of 2002 Halliburton had lost a large claim and sent the stock tumbling to a dangerous low.

I believe Cheney took on Dresser as a favor to GHWBush and the Bush family. His task was to prevent Asbestos claims from destroying Dresser and Harbison-Walker. Using his defence contacts he was able to secure BILLIONS of U.S. dollars in a war in Iraq to bolster HAL stock and give time for Buddies like Orin Hatch to push a bad asbestos liability bill through congress. Which required a GOP controlled senate. Wellstone dies in a crash. As a asbestos victim advocate he would NEVER of stood and allowed the Asbestos bill introduced by Hatch to live as long as it did. They spent millions on ads trying to convince limiting asbestos liability was good for victims.

The bill now stalled or dead has disappeared from the public as the war in Iraq and the election dominates the media.

The asbestos libility and estimated 750,000 claims is the single most expensive liability claim tracked to a single cause in U.S. history. Tort reform and Judicial appointments all now appear to guided by the outcome of this bill. Interestingly enough the public is now being hit with another campaign to allow Bush judicial appointments to go ahead.

For Bush to not gain the Presidency in November will certainly mean that any asbestos friendly legislation will be difficult if not impossible to pass. Funds pooling into Halliburton as a result of Cheney's open ended no-bid contracts will surely end and put Halliburton at risk for complete dissolution as law suits send the company spiraling into financial oblivion.

With the above threads it really looks like there has been a huge effort on the part of many big corporate type GOPers to make sure asbestos does not cause major economic strife for a large portion of U.S. industry. Much of which is the backbone of the U.S. military industrial complex.

It sickens me the length people will go to protect money and allow people to suffer generation after generation.


http://shop.store.yahoo.com/annieappleseedproject/nucchemaswas.html

Why do we allow our federal government to spend $200 trillion to wage war in Iraq yet grant Halliburton/ Kellogg Brown and Root $72 million in bonuses and not clean up the nuclear, chemical and asbestos wastes at Hunters Point and other communities polluted by past activities. How did we allow cancer to become the No. 1 killer without noticing it?

OMB and EPA squash the EPA Report - extremely lethal form of asbestos
Posted by seemslikeadream on Fri Apr-14-06 11:17 AM


December 29, 2002
Bush administration squashes EPA public health warning that insulation in 15 to 35 million U.S. homes is probably contaminated with an extremely lethal form of asbestos.
According to the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus and Wichita Eagle, the Bush administration has squashed the release of an EPA public health warning that insulation in 15 to 35 million U.S. homes is probably contaminated with an extremely lethal form of asbestos. The warning was originally planned to be released in April 2002, along with a declaration of a public health emergency in Libby, Montana, where ore from a W.R. Grace vermiculite mine was contaminated with an extremely lethal asbestos fiber called tremolite that has killed or sickened thousands of miners and their families. Shipping records from W.R. Grace show that at least 15.6 billion pounds of vermiculite ore was shipped from Libby to 750 plants and factories throughout North America, with between a third and half ending up in insulation called Zonolite that was used in millions of homes, businesses and schools from the 1940s through the 1990s.

In early April 2002, the U.S. EPA had a public health warning ready to go: News releases had been written and rewritten, and lists of governors to call and politicians to notify had been compiled. But the declaration was never made - just days before EPA was set to make the declaration, the warning was squashed by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), even though the EPA had already greatly watered down the warning at the direction of the OMB.

Both OMB and EPA acknowledge that the OMB was actively involved in quashing the warning, but neither agency would discuss how or why. EPA’s chief spokesman Joe Martyak said, "Contact OMB for the details," while OMB spokeswoman Amy Call said, "These questions will have to be addressed to the EPA." Both agencies have also refused requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to provide documents to and from OMB about the asbestos warning.
http://www.eces.org/articles/000256.php


U.S. Seeks to Intervene in W.R. Grace Asbestos Bankruptcy

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:_QRtYz5UJgsJ:www.asbestosnetwork.com/news/nw_061402_wrgrace.htm+w.r.+grace+bankruptcy&hl=en

LIBBY, MONTANA—June 14, 2002—On behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Justice has filed a motion to intervene in a bankruptcy action involving offshoot companies of W.R. Grace, a major asbestos defendant. The government charges that just prior to bankruptcy filing, W.R. Grace transferred funds to spin–off companies to hide assets and avoid liability for asbestos claims (Daily Inter Lake Newspaper, Kalispell, Montana, May 27, 2002). The company and 61 domestic subsidiaries had filed for bankruptcy reorganization under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in April, 2001.

W.R. Grace is the manufacturer of construction materials and chemicals and the former owner of an asbestos–contaminated vermiculite mine in Libby Montana. Vermiculite is an ore resembling mica that is used in housing insulation, soil conditioners, and fertilizers.

The United States is a Grace creditor and hopes to recover expenses for the environmental cleanup of Libby, which has been declared a Superfund disaster area. The company has received over 325,000 asbestos personal injury claims from Libby and elsewhere, according to a press release (see W.R. Grace web site, click on GRACE in the News, click on 2001 News Releases, then on April 2, 2001).

topAsbestos Insulation and Fireproofing
One W.R. Grace product, Zonolite insulation, often contains vermiculite that is contaminated with tremolite asbestos and derived from the Libby mines. The Environmental Protection Agency is removing Zonolite from homes in Libby, although it has no immediate plans to eliminate the insulation from millions of other residences nationwide (see article on Asbestos Zonolite Insulation in Libby).



Why did the White House prevent EPA from telling Americans about asbestos?
Murray Questions Why Our Government Isn't Warning Homeowners and Protecting Workers from Dangerous Insulation

For Immediate Release: Thursday, February 6, 2003

(Washington, D.C.) -- Today Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) spoke on the Senate floor about the public health dangers of asbestos-tainted insulation and continued to seek answers to why the White House prevented EPA from telling the American people about this danger.

There are between 15 - 35 million homes, schools and businesses in America that still contain asbestos-tainted insulation. Last year, the EPA developed a plan to warn homeowners of this silent danger. But an investigative report found that EPA never followed through because the White House OMB intervened to kill the plan.

For more information about asbestos, including the investigative report, and Sen. Murray's legislation to ban asbestos in America, go to http://murray.senate.gov/asbestos

[Xenotime]

24. Don't fuck with China. That last thing we need to do is piss them off.

[Xithras]

26. Asbestos is only dangerous if inhaled in quantity, while in fine dust form.

I would guess that most of these materials contain talc, which sometimes contains trace amounts of asbestos. Enough to constitute a health hazard? Typically not. Unless you're breathing airborn talc on a regular basis, it isn't going to hurt you.

[gorbal]

28. All the unexplained lung cancer deaths explaind

We are being very slowly and subtly murdered I guess. Where is Mis Marple when you need her.