Review of a review

Paul Brodeur, an editor of The New Yorker, is one of the new breed of social engineers who use pseudoscience to prey on the ignorant and gullible. His tome The Zapping of America [AtE Jun 78] brought concocted stories about non-ionizing microwave radiation (such as used for television, FM stations and radar) -- about genetic mutations in pilots who fathered an excess of clubfooted children, and similar superstitious garbage. To this he often adds the "guilt" of companies that knew they were innocent, but settled out of court with their alleged victims knowing (or believing) that they stood little chance of acquittal by activist judges and misled juries in matters requiring scientific expertise. By preying on the uninformed, he grabs not just money, but the halo of a champion of the downtrodden.

And that is what so disturbs me, for the limpness of the argument is sickening. Here is what a geologist or physician will tell you: Yes, in sufficiently large accumulations, asbestos fibers can be very dangerous. So can any other dust or fiber, such as coal dust, fiberglass or baking flour. But not all fibers are equally dangerous: chrysotile, which is the only type of asbestos mined in the US, is relatively benign. There is no cancer epidemic in the parts of California where people have been drinking naturally chrysotile-rich water and breathing fiber-rich air for lifetimes. What does expose school children to lung is the far more harmful material by which the asbestos scapegoat is often replaced; in fact just by tearing the asbestos out, there is usually more asbestos in the air after removal than before. And there is more... (could I get all the antinuclear superstitions into one short editorial?). Whether Brodeur knows what he is doing may be of interest to psychologists; but it makes little difference to the children who contract lung diseases by his indirect help.

But back to Seligman. Precisely because he is no Business Week Bozo, he should be held to higher standards. Would he go to a political scientist, however God-fearing a Republican, to have his appendix removed?

Dr. J.R. Dunn is president of the American Institute of Geologists, and a mineralogist specializing in asbestos problems. He is no more beholden to the asbestos companies than I am to the nuclear industry (in fact, by Brodeur's perverted logic, we both have a stake in the survival of the witch hunters, since we both profit from defending science against superstition). Much of the above rests on his information.(*)

I call on Mr Seligman to invite Dr. Dunn, or an equally qualified professional, to write an informed article on the asbestos problem.