Asbestos Is Still Killing 10,000 Americans a Year — Why Nothing Has Changed

How One Rock Poisoned Almost The Entire Planet by Veritasium, 55 minutes.

In 2017, a scientist testing children's makeup from Claire's stores found asbestos fibers in sparkly eyeshadow boxes, unicorn palettes, and spy kit fingerprint powder. Not in the 1980s. In 2017. He tested Claire's products from Brazil to Japan to London. Every single one contained asbestos. And that is just one tiny chapter in a story that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and continues to kill roughly 10,000 Americans every single year.

Here is the thing most people get wrong about asbestos. They think it is a solved problem, something from the past. It is not. This video follows Veritasium into the Nevada desert, into forensic labs, and through centuries of corporate cover-ups to reveal that the deadliest building material ever invented is still everywhere around us, still being imported by the hundreds of thousands of tons, and still slipping through the cracks of a regulatory system that was designed to ignore it.

The Indestructible Rock That Built Modern Cities

The story starts with the ancient Greeks, who discovered a fluffy mineral poking out of the ground that simply would not burn. The science behind it is elegant. Silicon atoms bond with oxygen to form incredibly stable pyramid-shaped units called silica tetrahedra. These link up into sheets, and in asbestos, those sheets curl into tiny scroll-like tubes that remain stable up to 600 degrees Celsius. The result is literally a rock you can weave into fabric.

This property made asbestos irresistible during the 1800s urbanization boom. Cities like New York were packed with wooden buildings heated by open flames. In December 1835, three fires erupted in Manhattan within two days, destroying nearly 700 buildings and causing over 730 million dollars in today's money. Similar catastrophes hit Chicago, London, Hamburg, and Tokyo.

In 1858, a 21-year-old named Henry Ward Johns set out to break the chain reaction of building fires. He heated tar in his tea kettle, smeared it onto cloth, pressed in cheap asbestos fiber scraps, and ran the whole thing through his wife's clothes wringer. It worked. It did not burn. By 1927, the company he built was generating over 800 million dollars in today's money. American consumption of asbestos rocketed from 20,400 tons in 1900 to a peak of 803,000 tons in 1973. Pretty much every building in the United States used it. And during that era, fire-related deaths dropped around 80 percent.

The Material That Ended Up In Everything

By the mid-20th century, asbestos was not just in buildings. It was in brake pads, toasters, ironing boards, hair dryers, surgical blankets, beer filters, and even a brand of toothpaste. The fake snow in department store windows and in movies like The Wizard of Oz was asbestos. Marvel Comics had a villain called Asbestos Lady. Global production peaked at approximately 4.8 million metric tons per year in 1977.

What most people do not realize is that asbestos is actually a group of different minerals. White chrysotile forms the fluffy fibers most people picture. Brown amosite creates thick needle-like splinters perfect for cement panels. Blue crocidolite splits into fibers with tensile strength comparable to high-grade steel wire. And here is perhaps the most unbelievable use of all. In the 1950s, Kent cigarettes manufactured filters made of blue crocidolite asbestos. Smokers were literally inhaling their cigarettes through one of the most carcinogenic substances on the planet.

The Cover-Up That Would Make Big Tobacco Blush

In the early 1900s, a young woman named Nelly Kershaw worked in a factory spinning asbestos fibers. By her early 30s, she could barely breathe. When she asked the factory for help, they refused, saying it would set a dangerous precedent. She died at 33. When pathologist Dr. William Cook performed her autopsy, her lungs were gray, scarred, and rasped like sandpaper under the scalpel. Asbestos fibers had lodged deep in the tissue.

The body treats these fibers like invaders. Macrophage cells try to engulf them, but the fibers are too long and stiff. Scientists call it frustrated phagocytosis. The macrophages keep trying and failing, releasing inflammatory chemicals that damage DNA, cause cells to divide uncontrollably, and form cancerous clumps. When the British government examined hundreds of asbestos workers, they found over 25 percent already had lung disease. For workers with 20 or more years of exposure, it was 80 percent.

But the real scandal is what the companies knew and when they knew it. In 1935, Raybestos-Manhattan's president Sumner Simpson wrote to Johns-Manville's lawyer saying the less said about asbestos, the better off we are. The lawyer replied that their interests were best served by having asbestosis receive the minimum of publicity. The companies hired Saranac Laboratories to study asbestos on animals but insisted on controlling what got published. When the lead researcher died in 1946, the companies agreed that nothing objectionable should be published. Entire sections of the research manuscript were crossed out.

A Johns-Manville medical official later testified that until 1971, the company had a policy of not telling workers if their physicals showed signs of asbestosis or cancer. In sworn testimony, a witness recalled asking the company president why they were not warning workers. The response was chilling. Yes, we save a lot of money that way.

The Doctor Who Fought An Industry

Dr. Irving Selikoff was running a small clinic in Paterson, New Jersey when the local asbestos workers union asked if their members could see him. What he found was devastating. Factory owners refused to share medical records, so Selikoff got creative. Using surviving FBI wartime personnel records from World War II background checks, he tracked down thousands of shipyard workers who had spent their days cutting and fitting asbestos in thick clouds of fibers.

The numbers were staggering. Asbestos exposure proved deadlier than combat itself. 8.6 out of every thousand servicemen were killed in action, whereas 14 out of every thousand shipyard workers later died from asbestos-related cancers. Lung cancer rates were seven times higher than expected. Gastrointestinal cancers were three times higher. And then there was mesothelioma, a rare cancer of the chest cavity lining caused when asbestos fibers literally pierce through the lung tissue.

Autopsies found fibers in nearly every organ. The brain, bone marrow, spleen, intestines, pancreas, prostate, ovaries, thyroid, and liver. Once fibers reach the lymphatic system, they can travel anywhere in the body.

The asbestos industry fought back viciously. They funded research minimizing the risks. They launched a coordinated PR effort to discredit Selikoff, calling him an alarmist and spreading rumors that his medical degree from Scotland was not legitimate. But Selikoff worked 18-hour days documenting every patient, publishing data, and urging policymakers to act.

Johns-Manville's Monopoly of Silence

What makes this cover-up particularly sinister is how Johns-Manville systematically eliminated alternatives. They acquired the biggest rockwool company. They bought up the key patents to calcium silicate insulation, a product that could be made without asbestos. They incentivized competing companies into creating asbestos product lines. With each acquisition, another potential competitor lost the ability to speak out or offer an asbestos-free alternative.

As one expert put it, that is how the asbestos industry guaranteed its survival, by ensuring no one could speak out against it. In 1982, Johns-Manville filed for bankruptcy protection, not because they were broke, but to shield themselves from lawsuits. Between 1940 and 1980, the industry had exposed roughly 21 million Americans to asbestos fibers, causing at least 8,000 to 10,000 deaths every year. Johns-Manville continues operating to this day under a different name.

September 11th and The Wrong Test

When the World Trade Center towers fell, they pulverized asbestos-containing construction materials into microscopic particles that remained airborne for days. The EPA was tasked with determining whether the air was safe. They chose polarized light microscopy, a method that struggles to detect asbestos below one percent concentration and cannot see fibers smaller than about 5 micrometers. These are precisely the fibers that are most dangerous, the ones small enough to lodge deep in lung tissue.

Researchers who used the more sensitive transmission electron microscopy found asbestos levels far above the EPA's safety thresholds. They posted results on the American Industrial Hygiene Association website. Within hours, the post disappeared. Less than 24 hours later, the researchers were notified they had been taken off the job. One former EPA chief investigator later said on CBS that the agency had deliberately used the wrong testing methods and downplayed the danger.

The EPA declared the air safe. As of December 2023, 6,781 people registered with the World Trade Center Health Program have died of illnesses or cancers linked to their time around Ground Zero. That is more than twice the number killed in the attacks themselves.

Asbestos Is Still In The Dirt Around Las Vegas

This is where the story takes its most unsettling turn. Geologists Brenda Buck and Rod Metcalf found asbestos spread across approximately one million acres outside Las Vegas. There were no asbestos mines in Nevada, no industrial sites. The asbestos is naturally occurring, eroded from bedrock into sediments and streams. When Veritasium went off-roading with dust collectors, they found between 30 and 50 million asbestos structures per gram of mud in a dry lake bed where people regularly drive, camp, and take wedding photos.

When Buck and Metcalf tried to warn the public in 2012, the state of Nevada sent a cease and desist letter. Officials tailed the researchers whenever they drove into Boulder City. The data has been publicly available since October 2013, but there is still no sign at the lake bed warning people of the hazard.

The fundamental problem is the definition of asbestos itself. Only six minerals are officially classified as asbestos, chosen because they were the ones being commercially mined. Anything else, no matter how fiber-like or dangerous, does not count. A single fiber can contain two different mineral phases. One side might meet the legal definition of asbestos while the other does not. But as one scientist put it, your lungs do not care about these categories.

A Global Crisis That Is Far From Over

In 2024, the United States finally banned chrysotile asbestos, but only chrysotile. The ban does not cover the other five types. Some manufacturers have up to 12 years to phase it out. It does not address asbestos already in buildings, schools, and homes. It does not fix the classification and detection loopholes. And it does not address naturally occurring asbestos in the environment.

Meanwhile, other countries are importing it at staggering rates. India imported more than 350,000 tons in 2019 alone. Researchers predict that six million people in India may develop asbestos-related diseases in the coming decades. All the asbestos already mined does not naturally decay. It is still there, in buildings, in soil, in products, waiting to go airborne.

As one researcher said, we will look back at this the way we look back at tobacco. You might find out that asbestos-related disease has touched you in some way. You do not even know yet.

Key Takeaways

One. Asbestos is not a solved problem. It is still killing roughly 10,000 Americans per year and was found in children's cosmetics as recently as 2017.

Two. The asbestos industry ran one of history's most coordinated corporate cover-ups, suppressing research, discrediting scientists, and acquiring competitors to maintain a monopoly of silence.

Three. After September 11th, the EPA used testing methods that could not detect the most dangerous asbestos fibers and declared the air safe. Over 6,700 people have since died of related illnesses.

Four. Naturally occurring asbestos has been found across one million acres near Las Vegas, but regulators have actively suppressed warnings to the public.

Five. The regulatory definition of asbestos is based on commercial categories, not health effects. Fibers that can cause cancer may not legally count as asbestos.

Six. The 2024 US ban covers only one of six types and gives some companies 12 years to comply, while countries like India still import hundreds of thousands of tons annually.