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Younghusband
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Younghusband

Date

July 26th, 2005

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Japan has lots of issues and scandals. We have only covered history books, wartime apologies, beef imports, gender relations, whaling, Article 9, so-called foreign criminals, and the beloved Jenkins. Above and beyond those are milk scandals, management crises, iron-triangle problems, mercury poisoning and a horde of other topics. But today we have the return of something that has been on the back burner for a while, and that is asbestos:

The Economist
… Although the World Health Organisation declared in 1980 that asbestos was a carcinogen, its use in construction was not banned in Japan until 2004, and a ban on all asbestos””?introduced in July””?will not come into effect until 2008. … The country lags decades behind other industrialised nations when it comes to containing the harmfulness of asbestos. All six regional Japan Railway (JR) companies created after privatisation in 1987 still use carriages insulated with asbestos. JR East has announced that it will decommission 90 of its 250 asbestos-containing carriages by 2006.

I remember reading about the ban in my morning Yomiuri in late 2004. I was shocked… how could it take them so long to come around? And now today:

JapanToday.com
The government was aware that inhaling even a small amount of asbestos could cause mesothelioma, a type of cancer, more than a decade before Japan started to control asbestos use in 1989, a 1978 report by a labor ministry expert panel obtained by Kyodo News on Monday showed.

It took them 26 years to ban something they knew could cause cancer?? WTFork! JapanPundits, please tell me what you think before I go off the deep end here.

Comments to this entry

RichL
July 27, 2005
2:20 am
The government is owned by business, but more profoundly and for longer than is the case in the US.
Curzon
July 27, 2005
2:37 am
Nahh, it isn't that much of a conspiracy. It's more to do with society and institutions in general. In Japan, individual responsibility is essentially nonexistent. Whatever bozo bureaucrats decided to do this, and whoever was complicit in allowing it to happen, probably knew that they themselves would never be held personally responsible or liable. This happens a lot in government in Japan, if you recall the mad cow scare of many years ago.

But remember also that lots of these so-called environmental/disease issues -- asbestos, dioxin, mad cow disease -- are in fact non-issues simply blown out of proportion by the media. Asbestos is fine as long as it is in an enclosed area. We encounter countless potentially harmful substances/things in our daily lives: freon, bleach, electricity, etc etc. As long as we're suitable insulated, we're fine. Ditto on asbestos. As long as its properly kept away from humans its a wonderful thing, a fire resistant insulator that keeps buildings warm. In the isolated cases of asbestos coming into contact with humans, it's more an issue of construction negligence than manufacturer defect. "See here for more.":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos#Controversy

Hope that stopped you from going off the deep end ;)
Saru
July 27, 2005
5:19 am
It's late and I'm beat, but just a quick note. I remember reading back when we were at Rits that the Health Ministry still had something like 7 or 8 cigarette vending machines in the building! Talk about Jonny Come Lately!
Saru
July 27, 2005
1:47 pm
p.s. You forgot tainted blood.
Plunge
July 27, 2005
2:09 pm
As long as its properly kept away from humans its a wonderful thing, a fire resistant insulator that keeps buildings warm.

This was discussed on some show Discover channel when talking about the worldtrade center and how the floors that had some kind of asbestos fire wall stuff lasted longer than floors built later on that didn't. I need to find that show again, it was interesting.
heirabbit
July 28, 2005
11:29 am
Asbestos has different kinds. If the asbestos is of the straight grain type, it has absolutely no relationship to cancer, as it can pass through the lungs. But another kind - which has a kind of a spiky tip to it and is generally mined from Africa - is quite dangerous (assuming of course there's actual exposure). By government not making this distinction they've eliminated a very wonderful and useful substance from the market. My old 85 Mazda had asbestos brake pads, and they lasted the life of the car.