You might want to further explore the concepts of joint and several liability and the many companies that used asbestos that are still very much solvent–GE, GM, Ford, Chrysler, every railroad, texaco, shell to name a few.
Gabe
Dave – nice commentary! Very well written, and all too true… and I see it in my trade, too, all the time.
And Ed – thanks for your comments on the WTC; they are right in line with what I have been reading on the subject.
And as I said before… or implied, anyway – it is impossible to design or use anything in a manner which is completely risk-free. A certain amount of risk must be assumed, if anything is to be done at all. The problem, as I see it (just one man’s opinion here, folks) is that the USA has become profoundly risk-averse, to the point of near paralysis. I do not think that it is too strong a statement to make to say that if the present day approach to risk and risk management had prevailed a century and a half ago, there would be no railroads, no cars, no airplanes, no nothing more advanced than a fancy buggy whip.
I agree with Futuremodal on this one. It takes a while for something to be recognized as dangerous, then the litigation ensues, then the offending substance becomes demonized. Now, I’m not saying asbestos isn’t dangerous. It is, and the type that got mixed up with the vermiculite is the worst kind, doctors say. But let’s take a more typical example: elementary schools that have asbestos above the ceiling tile, say. It is important to remember that the presence of that asbestos isn’t a “ticking time bomb” despite what people say; the metaphor is inept because it presupposes that the asbestos has been relatively benign up to now (thus assuaging any guilt we might feel about the earlier presence of the asbestos while still allowing us to demonize the substance, but only from now on). Then, once the courts have had their chew, we send cleaner-uppers in wearing hazmat suits, close the school, send the kids to some other school, overcrowding it and making learning difficult for all. Guys, it’s dangerous, but it ain’t plutonium. The teacher’s lounge in that school was probably responsible for more early deaths than any presence of asbestos because of second-hand smoke.
And, by the way, I agree that doing without asbestos is a hassle: no more super-efficient oven mitts, and the semi-metallic brakes in my last two cars don’t work very well until I’ve “scrubbed off the rust” by applying the brakes a couple of times. I wonder how many people don’t know that and grind themselves into an accident by having brakes that don’t work quite right until the rust has been (temorariliy) scrubbed off. Nonetheless, we’re going to do without asbestos and people who have suffered must be decently compensated but let’s not get crazy nuts about it. Unfortunately, our litigation system encourtages people to get crazy nuts about it, and I agree it isn’t just the ambulance-chasing type of attorney who blows this out of proportion.