Poll of the Day > Asbestos sold by Russian company is branded with the president's face

(+) Yeah! (+)

Approved by Donald Trump: A Russian asbestos company that operates a giant mine in the Ural Mountains is marketing its wares with President Trumps image, according to photos it posted on social media, citing former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt as well as Trumps outspoken support for the carcinogen.

The company Uralasbest posted photos of the pallets adorned with a seal with Trumps face in the center on its Facebook page in June.

Approved by Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States, the seal read, according to a translation supplied by the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit focused on human health and the environment that flagged the posting.

Asbestos, a fibrous silicate mineral that was used widely in industrial and commercial purposes such as construction in the United States, has fallen out of favor in many applications after a large body of scientific evidence connecting exposure to serious health concerns. Its use is restricted in the United States, though it has never been outright banned, as it has been in at least 60 other countries.

But Trump has long expressed skepticism about its potential health effects after it is applied. In his 1997 book, The Art of the Comeback, he wrote that he believed that anti-asbestos efforts were led by the mob. In 2012, he tweeted that the World Trade Center would not have burned down had asbestos, which is known for fire-resistant properties, not been removed from the towers.

The asbestos company focused on this supportive stance in a post accompanying the pictures.

Donald is on our side! the company posted in a caption for the photos, which also cited Pruitt.

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Posted by "" on Sunday, June 24, 2018

The use of asbestos in the United States has decreased dramatically in recent decades as links to health effects such as mesothelioma and lung cancer have come into focus. Because it is no longer mined in the United States, asbestos is imported for its remaining uses, primarily for the chlor-alkali industry. Until recently, 95 percent of asbestos in the United States was imported from Brazil, and the rest from Russia, according to Chemical & Engineering News, but a recent ban on the mining, use and sale of asbestos in Brazil has left an opening in the market. Some lawmakers have expressed worries about Russia being the sole asbestos supplier to the United States, Chemical & Engineering News reported.

Perhaps some companies are aware of these opportunities. Uralasbest, which reportedly counts Russian President Vladimir Putin as an ally, operates an enormous mine in Asbest, seven miles long, a mile and a half wide and about 1,000 feet deep for an area that is nearly half the size of Manhattan, according to the Center for Public Integrity. The company did not return a request for immediate comment.

Asbest, named for its chief product, was once known as the dying city because of elevated rates of lung cancer and other diseases, the center reported. A New York Times report from 2013 paints a grim picture of life in the mining town:

Residents describe layers of it collecting on living room floors. Before they take in the laundry from backyard lines, they first shake out the asbestos. When I work in the garden, I notice asbestos dust on my raspberries, said Tamara A. Biserova, a retiree. So much dust blows against her windows, she said, that before I leave in the morning, I have to sweep it out. Asbest is one of the more extreme examples of the environmental costs of modern Russias deep reliance on mining.

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The World Health Organization notes that all types of asbestos cause lung cancer, mesothelioma, cancer of the larynx and ovary, and asbestosis, saying exposure results from inhaling airborne fibers in working environments, air near factories that handle asbestos or air in buildings that contain decaying asbestos materials. The group says that one of the most efficient ways to eliminate asbestos-related diseases is to stop the use of all types of asbestos.

The trade group the Chrysotile Association (chrysotile is what is mined in Asbest) says that its product is less carcinogenic than other types of asbestos.

The classification of the World Health Organization establishes hazard of a substance rather than risk, it writes on its website. Almost four hundred other products and industrial processes are considered carcinogenic to humans, probably or possible carcinogenic to humans, but this does not mean that we must ban their use. This means that we need a strict control over their use.

The Environmental Protection Agency has never implemented a full asbestos ban. In 2016, Congress amended the Toxic Substances Control Act, giving the EPA a mandate to evaluate chemicals in use nationwide and raising hopes initially among some advocates that the agency would move forward with a full asbestos ban. Those hopes have yet to be borne out in the Trump era, in which the EPA has taken a sharp turn toward deregulation.

Asbestos was the poster child for why the original law was broken and not working, so now asbestos is an important litmus test as to whether the new law is better, Melanie Benesh, an Environmental Working Group lawyer, told The Washington Post. This administration is really responsible for setting the rules and setting the precedent for some of the ways this new law was going to be implemented. As far as we see, theyre taking every step they can to minimize this law and limit this law and not implement it in the way that it was intended.

In an email, the EPA said that asbestos was one of the first chemicals selected to be studied per the terms of the amended law. Final risk evaluations will be published by December 2019, it said.

Asbestos producers and associations in Russia have moved actively on potential bans against the product around the world, the Center for Public Integrity reported. Andrei Kholzakov, the chairman of the Uralasbest union, reportedly asked for Putins help.

He promised to support Russian producers of chrysotile, Kholzakov said afterward in a press release quoted by the Center for Public Integrity, especially in situations where we find ourselves under political pressure at the international level.

http://goo.gl/jkWvG4
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Foppe posted...

Lmfao.
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Making Soviet great again.
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Foppe posted...

Making Soviet great again.

Putin was his biggest campaign donor. Gotta suck up.
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Hehehehehehehehehe thats pretty good we're in the bad timeline go freedom
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Blorfenburger posted...

Hehehehehehehehehe thats pretty good we're in the bad timeline go freedom

I wanna switch timelines plz.
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That's perfect considering Donald Trump is about as good as mesothelioma...
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Wait, did Trump legit say 9/11 wouldn't have happened if they still has asbestos?
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Lokarin posted...

Wait, did Trump legit say 9/11 wouldn't have happened if they still has asbestos?

He said that the towers would most likely still stand, not that 9/11 wouldnt have happened.
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Speaking of timelines, does anyone else see Trump as Biff from Back to the Future?
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95% of commercially used (in the US, at least) asbestos is white (chrysotile) asbestos. This is the powdery, soft asbestos. It is by far the "safest" type of asbestos because it is less likely to be inhaled. Here is a SEM (scanning electron microscope) image of white asbestos. https://goo.gl/X1CkSM While there are still health risks involved in working around white asbestos, it is not nearly as bad as blue (crocidolite) asbestos. The image below is blue asbestos. It was mainly used in Australia, and it's estimated that up to 20% of crocidolite miners will die of mesothelioma. Luckily, as far as heat-resistant properties go, it isn't nearly as good as white asbestos, so its use is not nearly as common.

Imagine swallowing a big handful of straight pins. Now instead shrink them down until they're microscopic. Now multiply the number you had by tens of thousands (if not millions, billions, etc. Difficult to truly get a reasonable scale here). That's what's happening to your lungs when you inhale asbestos fibers.

This is what you're dealing with. You inhale it, it goes through your airways causing microtears which lead to inflammation. That's not a huge deal until it happens on a large enough scale (such as asbestos exposure). To make things worse, it will stick into the linings of your airways, lungs, etc. It doesn't go away. Everywhere they stick in is going to be permanently inflamed. Chronic inflammation can damage your DNA and can lead to cancer. A lot more goes into it than that, but you can safely say chronic inflammation is bad news regardless of why it's happening.

Another way of thinking of it: asbestos is like a splinter that will never go away. Except now you have millions of them and they're all throughout your airways.

The more fibers you're exposed to, the greater the damage done. Even among workers who were chronically exposed, the effects often take decades to manifest. If you are feeling short of breath a year after a single exposure, there is likely something else behind that, although it doesn't hurt to go get checked out.

Foppe posted...

Lokarin posted...

Wait, did Trump legit say 9/11 wouldn't have happened if they still has asbestos?

He said that the towers would most likely still stand, not that 9/11 wouldnt have happened.

Still stupid since NY woulda been covered in asbestos.
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FrndNhbrHdCEman posted...

Still stupid since NY woulda been covered in asbestos.

Fairly sure the blast of the towers collapsing would've spread a hell of a lot further than a massive hole in the side of one.
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