On Jun 1, 2:40�pm, The Daring Dufas
wrote:
On 5/29/2010 7:03 AM, Frank wrote:





On 5/29/2010 7:27 AM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

"mm" wrote in message
. ..
OT A tale of two webpages, both from Baltimore City

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/mar...ary-hazmat-201....

City school staff, students isolated after thermometer break
More than a dozen held on concerns of mercury exposure
Associated Press 9:47 p.m. EDT, May 28, 2010

A Baltimore fire department spokesman says more than a dozen people at
a Baltimore school have been isolated after broken thermometers
prompted concerns about the mercury inside.

They will probably monitor their health for the next 20 years now.

At a school not far from here, it was discovered the near 100 year old
building had asbestos in the ceilings. So they had an emergency
evacuation and closed the school until it was removed months later. Good
thing they did not wait another 90 minutes to the end of the school day
to send the kids home.

As a retired chemist, wide spread chemo-phobia is one of my pet peeves.
Like op said, as school kids, we would play with mercury. Lot of us have
silver/mercury fillings in our teeth. Today if you break a mercury
thermometer or cfl, they want to call in the EPA.

Same for asbestos. Sure, fibers breathed into your lungs can cause a
problem but asbestos is not going to jump off pipes or insulation and
attack you.

I remember reading something about a young woman who was a scientist
working for the EPA who discovered that only one type of asbestos
fiber was dangerous. She was told to keep her mouth shut because the
people in charge might get slaughtered by everyone who had to spend
billions of dollars unnecessarily. Perhaps it's a myth?

TDD- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Probably. Americans seem to thrive on myths rather than facts.