Sometimes it really does seem that they'd like to kill us all

Two years ago, I lost a very old and very dear friend. She died at the age of 74 from complications of a lot of pretty rotten things, but many of the complications were rooted in her having survived mesothelioma, which she had when in her fifties. The treatment was intense and horrific. You name it, she endured it. One of her physicians at Sloan-Kettering, where she was treated, told her that the severity of her case was the equivalent of what they would generally see in someone who'd worked in an asbestos mine.

It will not surprise you to learn that my friend Mary Beth hadn't worked in an asbestos mine. No, she was a librarian who specialized in computerized library systems. So she spent a lot of time working in old library buildings (Cambridge Public, Brooklyn Public) where the computers were in the basement. Where there were asbestos-laden ceiling tiles, piping, boilers. 

So...

MB "survived" mesothelioma (made all the worse by having developed a companion cancer about the same time), but the trade-off was a ton of health problems. The last few years of her life she was largely bed-ridden. The last 9 months of her life she was 100% bed-ridden. 

Asbestos was pretty prevalent back in the day. It was cheap. It was fire resistant. It was strong. My husband grew up in Vermont, dirt poor, in a house with Tilo siding. Asbestos. I'll bet the tile flooring in my childhood family room was made with asbestos, and likely the ceiling tiles were as well. The furnaces at my grandmother's, where we lived until I was six, were insulated with asbestos padding.

We all grew up with a lot of asbestos exposure. Maybe just not at the level that Mary Beth had in those old library basements.

Asbestos is no longer as widely used in the US as it once was, but it's still around. Most types of asbestos have been banned here, and US production was halted over 20 years ago. No more asbestos miners to contract mesothelioma! Which is a good thing...

In the final year of the Biden administration, the EPA put a ban on something called chrysotile asbestos. 

Known as “white” asbestos, chrysotile asbestos is banned in more than 50 countries for its link to lung cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer that forms in the lining of internal organs. White asbestos, however, has been imported for use in the United States for roofing materials, textiles and cement as well as gaskets, clutches, brake pads and other automotive parts. It is also used in chlorine manufacturing. (Source: NY Times)

That ban was not going into effect overnight. Manufacturers were granted 12 years to figure out alternative materials. But that 12 year stay wasn't good enough for the Trump administration, and their industry buddies, who are all hell bent on getting rid of any and all regulations that protect us from poisoned air, poisoned water, poisoned soil, poisoned food, poisoned products. No, the Trump EPA - which might as well be renamed the Wink-Wink-Nudge-Nudge-"Environmental-Protection"-Agency - has made a court filing to reconsider the ban. (Remember: anything Biden, anything Obama, is BAD and must be done away with.)

The move, which could halt enforcement of the ban for several years during the reconsideration, is a major blow to a decades-long battle by health advocates to prohibit the carcinogenic mineral in all its forms.

The EPA's motion to delay will be challenged by those who believe that asbestos is bad for living creatures, and that there's no need adding to the estimated 40,000 annual deaths attributed to it. In 2023, that would have included my friend Mary Beth. 

Despite the gruesome treatment she went through, despite the eventual deterioration of her health that the gruesome treatment brought with it, MB was happy to have survived mesothelioma. She had a pretty good decade or so during which she was able to work and travel, and lead a pretty good life. But once things began to go to hell, things really began to go to hell. 

She had tremendous mobility issues, and for many years was house-bound. (Things being things, things got worse in 2019 when her husband - and caregiver - dropped dead of a heart-attack.) The final years of her life, Mary Beth was bedbound, in and out of hospitals and rehab facilities. Able to stay home in the final months of her life with 24/7 live-in help. (And the most incredibly kind and generous friends and neighbors a girl could want: Deb, Lori, and Andrew. Believe me, they were saints on earth.)

While the last few years of Mary Beth's life were pretty awful - she was always a great reader, and I realized that she was beginning her actively dying phase when she was no longer asking me to order her books from Amazon - she retained her sense of humor up until the end.

I visited her in Long Island a few days before she died. We talked about how ironic it was that the hospice she was working with was Catholic. Like me, MB was an atheist who'd grown up in a super-Catholic family and had spent 16 years in Catholic schools. We'd met in college. 

In commenting on the Catholic hospice, MB told me that it was a good thing she wasn't going to need an abortion.

This was two or three days before she died.

Honestly, maybe there are too many regulations. Maybe we don't need to save the snail darter. But we really should be trying to make sure that life-saving protections are put in place, and enforced, where they can be.

Sometimes, it really does seem that they'd like to kill us all, doesn't it?

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Image Source: NY Times