Gloria Romero, the California state senator, is rallying support to drop Serpentine, a yellow, red, brown and sometimes gray mineral, as the California state rock. She and others feel that the rock’s occasional asbestos content should bar it from the attention it gets as the state’s representative mineral. The bill that Romero has proposed, which is rapidly gaining plenty of support, seems to aim more towards increased awareness of asbestos related diseases rather than actual reduction of exposure to the mineral.
“[Serpentine] contains the deadly mineral chrysotile asbestos,” Romero says, “a known carcinogen, exposure to which increases the risk of the cancer mesothelioma.”
Geologists are contending the movement, however, pointing out that the mineral itself poses no real hazard to human health. Serpentine, they say, is actually a family of some twenty different minerals with similar makeups, only a few of which actually contain any asbestos. Additionally, the amounts of asbestos found in the mineral deposits are negligible, and exposure to the specific type of asbestos found in Serpentine – chrysotile asbestos – hasn’t been formally linked to diseases in small amounts.
Fibrous asbestos, on the other hand, has been linked to a wide variety of deadly diseases such as asbestosis, lung cancer, mesothelioma and respiratory ailments. Mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive cancer, is caused almost exclusively by asbestos and causes thousands of deaths in America each year.
The asbestos industry in the United States and around the world has taken a surprisingly long time to “wake up” to the facts of asbestos related dangers. Regulations, restrictions and other laws concerning asbestos handling have been slow to protect against exposure, resulting in fairly widespread contamination. While the Environmental Protection Agency attempted to ban the substance in the 1980′s, the powerful asbestos industry overturned the decision just a few years later.
“Smear” campaigns against the mineral, such as dropping Serpentine as California’s state rock, may prove to be an effective strategy to increase public awareness of asbestos problems. Increased awareness and a more active, tangible public sentiment could help lawyers prosecute asbestos companies more effectively for negligently exposing their employees to the cancer-causing mineral. With America as one of the few remaining developed nations without an outright ban on asbestos, it seems that desperate measures may have some merit. To some, however, it just doesn’t make much sense.
“Serpentine is a very beautiful rock,” says John Rosenfeld, emeritus professor of geology at UCLA.
“Holding the rock is not a problem and it’s nothing you should be concerned about. It’s part of the history of California, noticed by the early settlers of this state. It’s a beautiful stone and shouldn’t be removed.”
