Possibly Most Dangerous Video to Produce…Ever

September 10th, 2010. By AbiK

I have to believe this video was one of the most dangerous ever created. Worse than even those swimming-with-the-sharks videos—after all, the danger there is clear and present. With this, it’s more insidious—and no one had a crystal ball to clue folks into the dangers that would be with asbestos exposure.

I’ve watched this video—Asbestos A Matter of Time—originally created by the Bureau of Mines – US Department of the Interior in 1959—numerous times. The music and voiceover harken back to those classic made-for-schoolkids videos many of us endured in the ’60’s, ’70’s and ’80’s—only those were usually talking about the dangers of forest fires, marijuana, or some birds-n-bees thing.

No, this little gem talks about that wonder mineral, asbestos.

Obviously, we now know (though perhaps our northerly neighbors up in Canada didn’t get the memo) that asbestos is some pretty bad stuff—highly toxic and carcinogenic. But back in the life-is-good ’50’s, asbestos was the jack-of-all-trades ingredient in roofing, flooring, insulation…just look at the video (and yes, it’s a bit lengthy). See the cord on the iron? The little boy playing with his train? Why, asbestos was almost as important to daily living as the very air everyone breathed!

But the most alarming part of this—aside from wondering about the ultimate health of the camera guy—is that the asbestos miners aren’t wearing any protective inhalation gear. The video talks about “safety”, but who knew back then that just bringing home some asbestos fibers on your clothes for your devoted wife to wash could result in her getting asbestos mesothelioma?

We’ve come a long way, baby—that’s for sure. And let’s hope Canada joins us at some point. Soon.

Tags: Asbestos, Asbestos Mesothelioma, asbestos_mesothelioma

This was posted on Friday, September 10th, 2010 at 8:23 am and is filed under Asbestos Mesothelioma, Emerging Issues . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.