ASBESTOS – WHAT'S IN A NAME?

For nearly 40 years, there has been numerous publications relates to asbestos – what it is (or isn’t), its health effects (or lack thereof), and analytical procedures. The desire of everyone is to regulate and control the mineral or minerals that are known to cause disease. Unfortunately, the tendency among regulators and much of the analytical community is to simply call a particle “asbestos” regardless of mineralogy or morphology. For many analyses, that’s OK since the material is a building product manufactured using commercially produced asbestos fibers. But in today’s world of raw material evaluations –or even of the dreaded naturally occurring asbestos – it is imperative that the mineral be properly identified and then that it be carefully classified as asbestos or non-asbestos. There have been calls for this type of action for the past 25 years, yet every time it’s attempted, the laboratory is vilified by the regulatory community as trying to hide corporate responsibility. Even now, the regulators are moving closer to controlling any elongated particle regardless of the mineralogy or morphology – there is no longer a need to determine mineralogy under the proposed concept. Shouldn’t we want to know if a particle is tremolite or winchite or richterite? What does it matter if chrysotile is contaminated with tremolite? Does anyone really know what is a Libby Amphibole? What’s in a name anyway?