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Comment by sametmax | Hacker News Reader

Even things we do understand and that we have documented are underused.

Let's take a few examples.

I had Malaria 10 years ago. Well, did you know Atovaquone-Proguanil (e.g: Malarone) can not only prevent Malaria, but also __cure__ it, killing the plasmodium in the liver?

Still, most people, including a lot of doctors, think you can't cure Malaria and you have to live with it for life.

The first documented death related to asbestos was in 1906, yet it was only banned a century later (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos).

WHO declared in 2015 that processed meat was now classified as carcinogenic to humans. The information is publically available on their website (http://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/), but who knows about it ?

So not only our understanding of the universe is very limited, but also, our ability to propagate (https://xkcd.com/1053/ :)) and use said understanding is even more limited.

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> The first documented death related to asbestos was in 1906, yet it was only banned a century later

Incredibly it's still not generally banned in the USA; only a small list of products are banned by the EPA federally.[0] It was increasingly banned in Europe from the mid 1980s, and totally banned throughout the EU in 2005.[1]

[0] https://www.epa.gov/asbestos/us-federal-bans-asbestos [1] https://cordis.europa.eu/news/rcn/13445_en.html

> but who knows about it ?

That was big news in Europe, e.g. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34615621

>Incredibly it's still not generally banned in the USA; only a small list of products are banned by the EPA federally.[0] It was increasingly banned in Europe from the mid 1980s, and totally banned throughout the EU in 2005.[1]

Like everything else, everything is deadly at large doses. Even water. Alcohol clearly causes stomach cancer too at large doses, yet alcohol is not banned, right? If we were to ban everything that leads to a certain point of toxicity, we would not be able to live with anything around us. Toxicity is factored by exposure, which is why "carcinogenic risk" is not a binary variable.

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/s...

> Everyone is exposed to asbestos at some time during their life. Low levels of asbestos are present in the air, water, and soil. However, most people do not become ill from their exposure. People who become ill from asbestos are usually those who are exposed to it on a regular basis, most often in a job where they work directly with the material or through substantial environmental contact.

The ones who are at the most risk in regard to asbestos are workers in construction or demolition. And in most countries how they should work with asbestos is now clearly regulated (safety gear and procedures).

  everything is deadly at large doses

  ...

  if we were to ban everything that leads to 
  a certain point of toxicity, we would not 
  be able to live with anything around us

No, that's not how this works.

The salient point here, is that we know about specific things which are predominantly non-essential, and atrociously bad for everyone.

Lead. Asbestos. Cigarette smoke. DDT. Plutonium. This list is not exhaustive.

Believe it or not, humanity is well acquainted with some natural, persistent, toxic villains, that no one needs to share a room with. No one's life is actually better with any of these things.

Yeah, coffee has low concentrations of acrylamide in it. Then, use that to argue that there's the same sort of calculated risk in the stimulant side-effects sought by those who self administer a cigarette's dose of smoke.

People try to form the same sort of argument, when contrasting natural substances and materials, versus synthetic counterparts. Gee, everything's natural! Yes, and the sun will swallow the better part of the solar system during its red giant phase. Except, that's not the point.

Muddying the waters, by digging up grey zone edge cases doesn't make asbestos a desirable choice for consumer goods, or even professional products. It doesn't make cigarettes good for anyone. It doesn't make lead a practical additive for gasoline. It doesn't mean we should render random birds extinct as by-catch, so we can barbecue all summer. It doesn't mean plutonium, in any amount, should be handled beyond the watchful eyes of armed guards by pretty much anyone.

The thing is though that most of the materials in that list can still be used in ways that don't incur risk. Just because making your water system out of a toxic metal is a bad idea doesn't mean you should outlaw the use of fishing weights and lead-acid batteries, in the same way the banning the shoving of asbestos into every corner of a house doesn't mean you have to also stop using it in firefighting equipment.

Actually, it kind of does. We really should stop selling lead fishing weights, and avoid using lead-acid batteries as much as possible. Mostly, because the world really is a better place for everyone, when consumer retail channels aren't fire-hosing these things into the waste stream. Lead acid batteries probably have unique applications to brag about, but fishing weights don't.

Yes, on shelves, it's all controlled behind appealing packaging, and a yeah quantity of people derive pleasure from using things properly, and disposing of their waste responsibly, but another portion of people take it home will simply spew it out into the open, dumping it into landfills, where maybe it leaches into a water table, and maybe it doesn't. But if you look at the inputs, it all started with making and selling such products at all.

Fire departments probably benefit from the use of asbestos, as a niche class of use cases. Simply knowing that there are exceptions to general utility, should not guide choices about broad marketplace availability.

Relative Risk

The problem with DDT was that while it didn't cause significant problems for people (at the concentrations used), it caused huge problems for birds (thinned shells). At the same time it wiped out the mosquito carrying malaria along the gulf coast. The ecologic side effects were terrible, but in many cases human risk may well have been reduced.

Some asbestos is extremely dangerous, some is not (it depends on their chemical composition and microstructure)... using the same name for all of them is not helpful to safety, nor is declaring all of them dangerous.

There is Plutonium in the Pacific ocean. Should we guard the ocean, ban swimming in the ocean, ban fish caught in the ocean? Why, when sun exposure is much more likely to kill you with carcinoma than ocean plutonium?

I definitely am still going to go outside during the day even though the dangeous sun is irradiating me. I'm going to eat toast with dangerous acrylamide.

...And I'm not taking off the dangerous lead weights ballencing my tire rims on the drive to work, because I want to live.

> And I'm not taking off the dangerous lead weights ballencing my tire rims on the drive to work

Yes you will, because they are being banned in a growing number of states and countries. Lead weights are already illegal in the EU and in several of the most populous states in the U.S.

> because I want to live.

That's silly. Unbalanced wheels are annoying, but they aren't dangerous unless the shimmy is extreme, like when you have a lot of mud stuck in your wheels, in which case wheel weights won't help anyway.

Yeah, I mentioned all of those specific examples, because it brings exactly your kind of response out of the woodwork.

Come back to me and say that lives were saved.

- Malaria spreading mosquitos went away.

- Asbestos: it depends.

- Ban the ocean because Plutonium??? Well, that's just crazy talk!

- Rebel against the wind in your face! Let the sun shine! Drive a convertable, because lead makes it possible! Treat yourself!

All of those points are the kind of attitude that defers coping with the consequences of something, for selfish reasons now.

> The ones who are at the most risk in regard to asbestos are workers in construction or demolition. And in most countries how they should work with asbestos is now clearly regulated (safety gear and procedures).

Yes but this is something that is commonly badly understood: the problem with asbestos is not that we can't manage it, it's that it WILL be badly managed at some point.

If you handle arsenic, you won't put it in schools and offices. You will manipulate it in very specifically environment that accommodate specific activities and is filled with specific people.

With asbestos, you have it in unmarked exposed building parts. Some accident may damage them. Somebody may drill a hole to fix something. Some contractor may rebuilt part of something without noticing. And then a small but continuous dose of asbestos will invisibly goes into the occupant lungs for years.

It's like lead in water pipe. It's insidious.

I think sametmax wrote a great reply already. I'll just address your logical fallacies.

Generalisation fallacy 1: "some harmful things are not banned; asbestos is a harmful thing; asbestos should not be banned".

Thankfully most governments are more nuanced with their regulations. In the case of asbestos, since comparable materials exist with less potential for harm, they are favoured and/or the more harmful stuff is banned. Where not possible there can be exemptions, e.g. see my European Commission link earlier, along with the "ban" it says:

> One remaining use of chrysotile has not been banned, however - in diaphragms which are used for electrolysis in certain chlorine plants. This exception is justified because no safe alternative has been developed and this process is carried out on closed sites under strictly controlled conditions.

Generalisation fallacy 2: "asbestos can be dangerous; if handled safely asbestos is not dangerous; asbestos is not a large risk".

Because it can be used safely does not make it generally safe.

A list of known and probable carcinogens: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/general-info/kno...

Posted while smoking my pipe and watching the sunset. Considering a ham sandwich, too.

The ones at the most risk are those who also smoke tobacco. The difference in cancer rates between smokers and non-smokers with equal exposure is huge.

> Incredibly it's still not generally banned in the USA

Surprisingly (to me) the restrictions on asbestos use were relaxed on 1 June 2018:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90208948/under-trumps-epa-asbest...

Sadly, it's not that surprising.

Making the news once doesn't mean people know about it, unfortunately.

Otherwise people would not vote for crooked politicians after their first idiotic behavior.

Unless you educate again and again, generation after generation, abstract knowledge doesn't stick.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

—Upton Sinclair

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