Yeah, cause they often (as I understand) were not using proper protective measures to keep from inhaling the dust particles. A common thing I have seen on construction sites of all sorts, is the workers refusing to use some thing or the other, because it makes them uncomfortable, or harder to see (but still can) or harder to breath (but still can) or some other jackanapes idea like that.
> Yet we spent an ungodly amount of money and time stripping asbestos from buildings that had been there for decades not causing any problems. Ironically, directly exposing people to asbestos in the process (more than you'd ever be exposed to it was left undisturbed).
This is where things get real fun. When moist or absolutely damp/wet, asbestos is basically harmless (to the lungs) because it's almost impossible to breath it in at that point. If you somehow manage to breath that in, you have to basically be trying to do it. When it is dryer than chalk on a hot summers day with 0% humidity though, then yeah it can cause all sorts of problems. But even then, people removing it tend to do the thing that the other prior mentioned construction workers (often) won't do.
They wear gloves, have masks on; and even are running some form of proper ventilation. And so much of the issue is averted.
Then comes the media and government. They take edge case scenarios like these, and hype them up; whilst mixing in the prior construction workers into the data. This makes things look worse than they really are.
It's not just Asbestos you can find this sort of thing with them. You can find media and government doing this with many things if you look carefully.
But that being said, none of this is to say that Asbestos isn't a problem at all. It's just to say that Asbestos gets the treatment it does for the same reason we have warning labels on nearly everything.
We placate and protect the stupid... stupidly.