The son of the late singer and songwriter Warren Zevon spoke at the most recent Asbestos Awareness Day, the sixth annual such conference organized by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO). The conference took place in Chicago, Illinois, and worked to illuminate the reality of asbestos disease in the United States and the world. The ADAO aims to achieve a total ban on the use of asbestos products, and champions tightening regulations and improved health and safety measures.

Warren Zevon, possibly best known for his 1978 hit “Werewolves in London”, was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a terminal cancer caused by exposure to asbestos, in 2002. He died the following year.

Jordan Zevon spoke of his dad at the sixth annual Asbestos Awareness Day not only as a legendary musician but also as a good father and a close friend. Many other people including mesothelioma patients, affected family members, scientists, doctors and researches spoke at the conference. In addition to recognizing the deep injury that the negligent handling of asbestos has caused families across America, the speakers also emphasized the shortcomings inherent in failing to ban the carcinogenic substance.

Australia, New Zealand, and many nations across the European Union completely banned asbestos years ago. Some of those nations even took the additional step of requiring public buildings to have all asbestos materials used in their construction safely removed and replaced in order to protect public health.

While the United States Environmental Protection Agency did initially instate a ban on asbestos in 1989, it was overturned just two years later when the EPA was sued by Corrosion Proof Fittings, a company that produced asbestos products. Today, while regulations are enforced at state and federal levels requiring certain safe handling and disposal procedures when handling asbestos, its use in certain products is still legal.

The ill effects of asbestos in the workplace are well known, and many organizations including the World Health Organization (WHO) have worked to decrease contamination and increase awareness of the dangers of the substance.

“The tragedy of occupational cancers resulting from asbestos, benzene and other carcinogens is that it takes so long for science to be translated into protective action,” said the Director of Public Health and Environment for the WHO, Dr. Maria Neira.

“Known and preventable exposures are clearly responsible for hundreds of thousands of excess cancer cases each year. In the interests of protecting our health, we must adopt an approach rooted in primary prevention; that is to make workplaces free from carcinogenic risks.”

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) is planning on introducing some changes to the state’s regulations concerning the safe handling and disposal of asbestos during asbestos remediation efforts. The goal of the new regulations is to improve the health and safety of both the individuals and businesses embarking on asbestos removal, and that of the laborers that actually perform the work.

The rapidly changing nature of asbestos regulations directly affects many companies in the industry, dictating their costs and even providing their clients as legal requirements for asbestos abatement and regulations regarding how its done continue to change. The ADEQ hopes that reducing the fees associated with obtaining the appropriate license to perform the work will offset the costs of the higher standards and more time consuming tests.

Environmental organizations and health agencies around the United States and the world are concerned about reducing asbestos exposure because of the health hazards that it presents. Accidentally inhaling or ingesting microscopic asbestos fibers can cause a wide variety of diseases, including the aggressive and terminal cancer mesothelioma. The risk of exposure to asbestos increases vastly during asbestos removal or any time that the substance is handled, creating the need for strict state enforced handling regulations. Mesothelioma alone claims the lives of some three thousand Americans every year.

Kendall Shelby owns a small air quality company in Fort Smith Arkansas that monitors airborne asbestos levels during asbestos abatement projects. “If it’s a small, short project, you know a clearance check is all we do,” said Kendall, “anything of larger size we’ll try to throw in a few days of air monitoring just for the benefit of the client.”

Shelby’s company is one of many that will be affected by the new regulations, but the changes are something that businesses in this industry seem to expect. “Back a long time ago we had 10, 15 guys in the field and now most companies are fairly small,” said Shelby. “As of now I have just three people out there.”

“We did this already,” Shelby said, referring making changes due to new requirements, “so it’s not any big change to some companies.”

When asked about the newest regulations being introduced by the ADEQ, Shelby said “[it will] probably cost us an additional five percent across the board to do it the way the new regulations will require us to do it, which is something I think we can live with.”

There has been some controversy recently concerning the manufacture of carbon nanotubes because of the properties that they share with the dangerous substance asbestos. Asbestos has been recognized as a health hazard since the early 20th century, and has since caused hundreds of thousands of deaths through a variety of asbestos related diseases.

The danger of asbestos lies in its shape. Individual microscopic asbestos fibers are long and thin, somewhat like a tiny thread or needle. While the body is equipped with a variety of mechanisms for expelling foreign debris, asbestos fibers are able to slip through these defenses due to their unique shape and size. Once asbestos fibers have breached the body through accidental inhalation or ingestion, they pass through the lung or intestinal walls and become ensnared in the mesothelium, a soft tissue that surrounds many of our body’s organs. The scarring that the fibers cause in the mesothelium can eventually develop into malignant tumors that spread rapidly and cause death in some six to eighteen months.

Carbon nanotubes resemble asbestos fibers in their long, thin shape. The nanotubes are constructed by causing carbon atoms to bond in a specific configuration called an allotrope, which can be thought of as a sort of flat surface rolled into a hollow cylinder or tube. The tubes can achieve length to diameter ratios of up to 132,000,000:1, which is one of many of their attributes making them critical to the nanotechnology industry. Carbon nanotubes could potentially be used for the construction of all sorts of microscopic machines and electronic components, as well as for the development of bulletproof clothing, microscopic high yield batteries, and more.

A series of preliminary experiments conducted in the United Kingdom suggest that carbon nanotubes could cause mesothelioma or other diseases similar to mesothelioma. One study showed that injecting the nanotubes into the abdomen of mice caused the same kind of scarring found in the mesothelium of asbestos exposure patients.

In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency has recognized the similarities between carbon nanotubes and asbestos fibers, and has begun studies which aim to identify which types of carbon nanotubes, if any, present a serious threat to human health.

While existing studies show good reason to proceed with caution, there is no conclusive evidence as of yet that links carbon nanotubes to the development of mesothelioma or other respiratory illnesses.