Over the past six-and-half years, the Sunday Telegraph journalist Christopher Booker has written at least 38 articles in which he downplays the dangers of asbestos:

 http://richardwilsonauthor.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/bookers-38-bogus-claims-about-white-asbestos/

Booker’s opening claim, back in 2002, was that white asbestos had, ‘by one of the most unfortunate sleights of hand in scientific history’, been subjected to the same ‘demonisation’ as the lethal blue and brown varieties, ‘just because it shares the same name’. The ‘soft, silky fibres’ of white asbestos, Booker explained, were ‘chemically identical to talcum powder’:

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1381270/Christopher-Bookers-Notebook.html

Booker’s claims are strikingly similar to those of the asbestos industry, which for years has been fighting off litigation claims, and lobbying for prohibitions on white asbestos to be eased. One of his main sources has been John Bridle, a South Wales businessman with links to the industry-funded ‘Chrysotile Institute’, who in 2005 was convicted under the Trade Descriptions Act of making false claims about his professional qualifications.

Booker first described John Bridle as ‘UK scientific spokesman for the Asbestos Cement Product Producers Association’. By 2003, he was ‘one of the country’s leading asbestos experts’. By 2006 he was ‘Prof John Bridle’, ‘Britain’s leading practical asbestos expert’, and a ‘knowledgeable and brave whistleblower’, who had helped to expose a conspiracy by French and Belgian asbestos-replacement manufacturers to scare the public into removing white asbestos from their homes on the basis of a ‘non-existent risk’.

But a 2006 investigation by the BBC’s You and Yours programme accused John Bridle of basing his reputation on ‘lies about his credentials, unaccredited tests, and self aggrandisement’.

Far from posing ‘no measurable risk to health’, white asbestos is classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a ‘group one carcinogen’. Based on a series of peer-reviewed studies, the British government, the European Union, the World Health Organisation and the World Trade Organisation all believe that white asbestos is unsafe, and dangerous to health. Even now, asbestos in its various forms is thought to be responsible for nearly 4,000 deaths in the UK each year.

See Miningwatch: “Refuting Industry Claims That Chrysotile Asbestos Is Safe”:  http://www.miningwatch.ca/index.php?/Asbestos_in_Quebec/chrystotilescience

...and the UK Health and Safety Executive: “HSE confirms white asbestos remains a threat”:  http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/2002/e02010.htm

This week, the Guardian's George Monbiot ran a damning exposé of Booker's "dangerous misinformation" on asbestos - and global warming, highlighting his promotion of the bogus 'expert' John Bridle and his misrepresenting of peer-reviewed scientific research in support of his claims:

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/23/controversiesinscience.health

In response, the Sunday Telegraph has today published yet more bogus pseudo-science from Christopher Booker on this issue. Booker alleges that the risk from white asbestos cement is insignificant because 'fibres cannot physically be released from the cement in the "respirable" form that can damage human lungs'.

This claim was examined in detail in a investigation by the UK government's Health and Safety Laboratory (part of the Health and Safety Executive), in November 2007. The HSL found that:

"The analysis carried out showed that the asbestos cement contained fibres of chrysotile asbestos and released chrysotile asbestos fibres to air when sufficiently disturbed…

Claims being made in Internet articles and in some sections of the newspaper industry are not supported by this investigation.

Epidemiology has shown that chrysotile is a human carcinogen. Animal experiments have shown no evidence that the chrysotile asbestos extracted from the weathered surface of A/C products is less carcinogenic than UICC standard chrysotile asbestos…"
 http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/hsl_pdf/2007/hsl0711.pdf

It's difficult to know what's driving Booker's determination to spread misinformation on this life-and-death health issue, or what it will take to get him to stop. But the dangers should be clear.

According to a survey released earlier this year by the British Lung Foundation, less than a third of workers such as builders, plumbers and carpenters - those most at risk of disturbing absestos materials through their work - were aware that asbestos exposure can cause cancer. Just over one in ten knew that it could kill them:

 http://www.inthenews.co.uk/news/health/finance/tradespeople-ignorant-asbestos-risk-charity-warns-$1206707.htm

 http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/news/archive/newsarchive/2008/february/18483013

In this context, for the Sunday Telegraph to publish 39 separate articles misrepresenting the science on this issue seems both naive and irresponsible.