Richard Wilson's blog

richardcameronwilson AT yahoo dot co dot UK

Another surrealist masterpiece from Christopher Booker

with 18 comments

Update – False and misleading claims about asbestos are especially galling for those actually living with mesothelioma, a cancer whose only known cause is asbestos exposure. A Mesothelioma action group have now set up a Facebook campaign criticising the Daily Mail over its misleading coverage on this issue.

Compare and contrast…

1. From Christopher Booker in today’s Daily Mail:

Yesterday saw the launch of yet another scare campaign.

As so often before championed by the BBC, it warned us again of the deadly dangers posed by asbestos – this time in Britain’s schools.

It is true that most older school buildings contain asbestos products of one kind or another, such as asbestos cement roof slates or ceiling tiles.

But almost all of these products contain relatively harmless white asbestos, encapsulated in cement or other materials, from which it is virtually impossible to extract even a single dangerous fibre…

…when it is encapsulated in cement, as it most often is, it is virtually impossible for those fibres to escape and be breathed into the lungs at all..

==> From the UK government’s Health and Safety Laboratory, 2007

Epidemiology has shown that chrysotile is a human carcinogen…

The claim that respirable airborne chrysotile fibres are not able to be released from asbestos cement products was refuted by the individual airborne fibres sampled during the breaking of the test sample with a hammer.

2. From Christopher Booker in today’s Daily Mail:

The dangers from such products are so vanishingly small – as many scientific studies have shown – that, in the cautious words of a report by the HSE itself, they are ‘insignificant’. The risks of their causing lung cancer are ‘arguably zero’.

Written by Richard Wilson

February 23, 2010 at 10:45 am

Posted in Don't Get Fooled Again

Tagged with ,

18 Responses

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  1. I Can not believe that once again, Mr. Richard Wilson is working for the ban asbestos group.

    It is clear that the information in the John Bridle has good arguments. Almost every polemic products, specially the industrial and chemical products, has scientific paper pro and against them.

    But the real point is, there is control measurement in the work place?? The answer is: Sure there is!!!! You just have to ask in the Trade Unions, but the real trade unions that are responsible for the workers in the factory. Not some institutions as Ban Asbestos Secretariat are saying that represents the workers around the world, saying that the workers are dying!

    The other truly as the involvement of the Lawyer office in the Ban Asbestos Cause. This firms of lawyers are financing the movement of the Ban Asbestos, because they want to obtain more claim process, they want to suit more the companies.

    This are the real aims of the Ban Asbestos campaign that should be discharged.

    This is the real ” Don’t Get Fooled Again”

    So… We have to thank you Mr. Bridle for being so courage in try to take us ” out of Matrix”

    Best Regards,

    Jessica Hurling
    UK

    Jessica Hurling

    February 24, 2010 at 5:15 am

  2. […] Several times the health and safety executive has tried to correct Booker’s false claims, but he has kept repeating them, even claiming – wrongly – that the executive’s own work supports […]

  3. […] and Safety Executive has tried to correct Booker’s false claims, but he has kept repeating them, even claiming – wrongly – that the Executive’s own work supports […]

  4. […] Several times the health and safety executive has tried to correct Booker’s false claims, but he has kept repeating them, even claiming – wrongly – that the executive’s own work supports […]

  5. […] Several times the health and safety executive has tried to correct Booker’s false claims, but he has kept repeating them, even claiming – wrongly – that the executive’s own work supports […]

  6. […] Several times the health and safety executive has tried to correct Booker’s false claims, but he has kept repeating them, even claiming – wrongly – that the executive’s own work supports […]

  7. […] and Safety Executive has tried to correct Booker’s false claims, but he has kept repeating them, even claiming – wrongly – that the Executive’s own work supports them. Unreleased report shows high levels of asbestos […]

  8. […] when the people he cites as his sources (the health and safety executive in the case of asbestos) try to correct him, he keeps repeating the […]

  9. […] when the people he cites as his sources (the health and safety executive in the case of asbestos) try to correct him, he keeps repeating the […]

  10. […] when the people he cites as his sources (the health and safety executive in the case of asbestos) try to correct him, he keeps repeating the […]

  11. […] when the people he cites as his sources (the health and safety executive in the case of asbestos) try to correct him, he keeps repeating the […]

  12. […] when the people he cites as his sources (the health and safety executive in the case of asbestos) try to correct him, he keeps repeating the […]

  13. “when it is encapsulated in cement, as it most often is, it is virtually impossible for those fibres to escape and be breathed into the lungs at all.” Do we really need to debate this claim, or smear the author? What happened to common sense? Any material embedded in cement will stay there unless the cement is broken up.

    Gareth

    October 16, 2011 at 10:41 am

  14. Gareth: “Any material embedded in cement will stay there unless the cement is broken up.”

    At the risk of stating the obvious, cement is not eternal and unbreakable.

    jungle

    October 16, 2011 at 12:16 pm

  15. John Bridle and Christopher Booker are wearing the white hats here. The HSE, the BBC and George Monbiot are pushing the alarmist line which helps the boys from Canvey build their swimming pools.

    John Hume

    October 17, 2011 at 8:29 am

  16. […] Several times the health and safety executive has tried to correct Booker’s false claims, but he has kept repeating them, even claiming – wrongly – that the executive’s own work supports […]

  17. […] Several times the health and safety executive has tried to correct Booker’s false claims, but he has kept repeating them, even claiming – wrongly – that the executive’s own work supports […]

  18. […] Several times the health and safety executive has tried to correct Booker’s false claims, but he has kept repeating them, even claiming – wrongly – that the executive’s own work supports […]


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