Two week ago, the University of Konstanz’s library was celebrated as Germany’s Library of the Year. This last week, it had to be closed until further notice when Asbestos fibers were found in several parts of the building.

Interestingly, and luckily, the fibers were absent in air samples, but found on top of shelves and on books. The facility needs to be cleaned (by specialists), but more importantly, the source of contamination will have to be identified and eliminated before the library can re-open.

When we lived in New Jersey in the 1980′s, some of my business trips led me past the borough of Manville, and whenever I hear asbestos stories, I remember that place. Manville, named after the Johns-Manville corporation, whose manufacturing facilities used to dominate the town. Founded in 1886  as the Manville Covering Company in Milwaukee, WI, it pioneered the use of asbestos as a building material [1]. The hazards of working with asbestos, especially the risk of developing malignant pulmonary diseases, became apparent in the early twentieth century, and as early as 1918, life insurance companies refused coverage to asbestos workers due to their workplace health risks [2]. It took until 1979, however, before the US Environmental Protection Agency contemplated a complete ban on asbestos use.  This complete ban went finally into effect in 1989. It was, however, revoked in court in 1991. Severe restrictions on its use, however, remain.

A story I heard while living in New Jersey was that frequently it was the wives of asbestos workers who were stricken. While the workplace hazards were recognized, and some means of protection against inhaling the fibers was worn at work, nobody thought of the dust covering work clothes, and the exposure suffered while trying to clean them at home.

In Germany, the use of asbestos has been illegal since 1993, and the European Commission enacted a Europe-wide ban in 2005. But, as the Konstanz incident proves, the heavy, almost unrestricted use of the fiber material especially in the building industry for almost a century leaves a legacy for generations to come. As many of the illnesses linked to asbestos are long-term, the incidence of deaths is still high. In Germany, more that 1000 people per year die from asbestos exposure, more than from workplace accidents [3].

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