Tell-tale dust from drier proved makers used asbestos

Press, 15 June 1979, Page 13

Tell-tale dust from drier proved makers used asbestos

Lacy Rich, a freelance photographer in Washington D.C., was in the habit of using a small hair drier to speed up the drying process in his dark room. One day he noticed dust adhering to some newly developed prints and, on checking, found it came from the gun-shaped machine in his hand.

Rich conjectured that this might be asbestos dust, which he knew to be a cause of cancer, so he took his drier to the organisers of a consumer action programme at a Washington television station. They were quick to grasp the potential of his story. Millions of Americans regularly use home; hair driers: were they all having asbestos particles blown in their faces and mouths?

The programme’s producer, Bob Currie, sent two of his reporters on the story and they worked on it for months, buying a variety of hand hair driers from shops and secondhand dealers and sending them to an independent

laboratory to be tested for asbestos content.

They made inquiries at the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the federal agency which is supposed to know these things, and were told there was no cause for concern: in 1977 the Commission had investigated the possible hazard of asbestos in hair driers and had learned then that the use of asbestos for this purpose was in the last stages of being phased out.

The laboratory working for the television station WRCTV came up with a different result. They found asbestos not only in some of the second-hand driers but in at least 20 per cent of the new ones. When reporters questioned the manufacturers, some denied knowing that asbestos was going into their products; some said they knew it but did not believe it was harmful; some responded that “if the laboratory experts say we are using asbestos they are probably right.”

Presented with the evidence, the Consumer Product Safety Commission ruefully admitted that it had oeen misled. The television station aired its programme about the hazards of home hair drier in March. Within days the CPSC — new embarrassed that it had accepted, without checking, the report of two years earlier — was demanding that all manufacturers of driers reveal what materials they were using for insulation. A surprising number admitted to asbestos. Information is still being gathered but, on the basis of what is now known, the television station’s estimate of 20 per cent may be a lot less than the reality. The CPSC is still investigating whether the asbestos particles — which my be blown by the drier’s strong air current right into the user’s nostrils — are small enough to enter the respiratory system. Research by scientists of the independent

Environmental Defence Fund indicates that they are. If the CPSC agrees with this, there should soon be official action to remove all asbestos-lined driers from the market. The bonnet-type dryers used in beauty salons are also being checked, and a few of those have been found to contain asbestos. The extent of the potential hazard to users is uncertain. However, it has been well documented that even the small amount of dust brought home on the clothes of asbestos workers has caused members of their families to develop cancer. Every day CPSC’s “hot line” is jammed by telephone calls, most of them from consumers wanting

to know whether their particular model of hair drier is safe. Manufacturers who have been using asbestos are now offering to replace the driers or to remove the asbestos and insert a harmless insulation inOfficials of the CPSC say that no consumer issue has brought them as many inquiries as this one. “We had to put in extra telephone lines,” said a commission spokesman. “We are getting 3000 calls a day. and our lines telephone company estimated we were losing another 6000 calls every hour. We have even had inquiries from Japan and Australia. People are deeply concerned.” — O.F.N.S. Copyright.