Trump’s EPA to “reconsider” ban on cancer-causing asbestos

Despite touting ambitious goals of making America healthier, the Trump administration on Monday revealed in court documents that it is backpedaling on a ban on cancer-causing asbestos.

Last year, under the Biden administration, the Environmental Protection Agency took a long-awaited step to ban the last type of asbestos still used in the US—chrysotile asbestos, aka “white asbestos.” While use of chrysotile asbestos was on the decline, the dangerous mineral has lingered in various gaskets, brake blocks, aftermarket automotive brakes and linings, other vehicle friction products, and some diaphragms used to make sodium hydroxide and chlorine.

With the ban, the US joined over 50 other countries around the world that had already banned its use due to health risks. Generally, asbestos is known to cause lung cancer, mesothelioma, ovarian cancer, and laryngeal cancer. Asbestos exposure is linked to more than 40,000 deaths in the US alone each year, the EPA noted at the time.

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