Some scientists say that the reason the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre collapsed in a matter of minutes following the assault by two commercial airliners was the lack of asbestos in the building to retard the flames’ progress.
In 1971, even as the World Trade Centre was under construction, New York City banned the use of the fire retardant asbestos, amid concerns that it causes cancer.
Although the fire-retarding material used in the upper floors was tested by Underwriters Laboratories up to the temperatures of ordinary fires and was found to have comparable fire retarding capability, the New York Times has noted that some experts think asbestos would have outperformed it at the higher temperatures reached by the burning jet fuel.
Asbestos has been shown to cause lung cancer in workers exposed to high levels for long periods of time during the manufacturing process; the Environmental Protection Agency now says casual exposure is not harmful.
Robinson and others say the asbestos ban was based on environmental “junk science” that exaggerated the danger, and thus may have cost lives.
Sources: Jon Dougherty, WTC collapse due to environmentalism? WorldNetDaily.com, November 20, 2001; James Glanz and Andres C. Revkin, Haunting Question: Did the Ban on Asbestos Lead to Loss of Life? New York Times, September 18, 2001; EPA Asbestos Fact Sheet.
For text http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25385
For more on Access to Energy http://www.accesstoenergy.com/
For EPA info http://www.epa.gov/enviro/nyc/asbestos/
For more on Environment http://www.ncpa.org/iss/env/
FMF Policy Bulletins\27 November 2001
