9% chance, the best possible case given the current data, of a horrible, slow, lingering death 20 years later is still unacceptable. What's the rate for getting mesothelioma after working with asbestos?
I can't put together a simple number based on the papers I'm finding, especially if we're limited to mesothelioma. Cancer risks are reported in units of f/mL.yr (fibers per milliliter of air per year) or f/g (embedded fibers per gram of dry lung tissue). And there's a huge range to occupational exposure, which I'm not capable of relating back to the risk numbers. (I don't have the numerical skills.)
But suffice it to say that, surprisingly, AFAICT for even exceptionally heavy occupational exposure (e.g. mining asbestos or removing asbestos insulation) lifetime risks of developing mesothelioma seem to be well below 10%, and possibly even below 1%.
That's the modern risk, right? Taking into account all the things those professions do to mitigate the risk? If you've seen someone remove asbestos in the past 20 years, it's obviously not as if they're just wearing jeans and a t-shirt and hauling armloads of the stuff.
That's the risk deduced from the study of cohorts going back to at least mid-century. But it's specific to mesothelioma, not all cancers resulting from exposure. Mesothelioma seems to have a long lag time between exposure and presentation, suggesting to me that many of the cases being studied would relate back to exposure before modern occupational safety regulations.
Also, there are several kinds of asbestos fibers (broadly serpentine and amphibole), and the most lethal kind seem to be present typically as only a small fraction. Which makes it harder to relate risk (typically in units of f/mL.yr of a specific fiber type) to occupational exposures (often, AFAICT, in units of f/mL.yr of mixed fibers).
I suppose some of the horror stories about insane cancer incidences are from areas with peculiar asbestos deposits. Most of these studies I found were looking at averages of various cohorts (based on occupation, mix of fiber, etc), so wouldn't reflect those peculiar environments. Which I think is fair when comparing to CTE, otherwise you can cherry pick to exaggerate or minimize the relative harm of CTE. Ultimately there's a limit to the comparison.
But be skeptical. I'm gleaning this from some some quick Google searches and a superficial parsing of research papers, trying to create a 10,000' picture from claims and statements that are couched in very specific and narrow terms.
Now we have ceramic wool which doesn't have regulations like asbestos does but is still a known carcinogen and the handling of it is done without any PPE.
Right, but the comparison being made here is between football and asbestos removal, which is a profession people have today.
The subtext was, "even asbestos removal has a lower risk of health problems than football".
But I think that comparison may be confounded by the fact that the modern asbestos removal profession is organized around safety. In other words, that asbestos removal is not a good comparison point for high-risk professions.
I was specifically thinking about historical methods for asbestos installation. I don't know the numbers exactly. I know that modern methods for handling hazmats like asbestos are good enough that it's basically not a risk factor. However, I suspected, based on the lack of "My grandfather got X and died" stories, that even old-timey asbestos handling protocols did not have a particularly huge rate. A visible rate, yes, but not something like coal mining sans PPE, mercury, or tritium, where the occupation effectively guarantees your cause of death. I chose asbestos because it was the most visible example that came to mind of something that had a relatively low rate but that most people would agree needed to be shut down for the health and safety of the workers involved with it.
I'll note that the "lifetime risk" numbers in the first response are almost certainly historical. I'd expect the studies he's looking to have been published around the time modern handling standards were developed, and they may have even contributed to their implementation. The symptoms also take decades to manifest, so I'd expect modern rates to be good indicators of the safety of the industry circa 20-30 years ago and nearly useless for indicating modern standards. 50 years ago probably not, but 20 years is probably still good.
That's like saying an informed society is better than a society that doesn't have OSHA regulations... You can't dangle millions of dollars in front of (often poor, often minority) college students and say "well you were informed of the risks" and then wash your hands of all responsibility.
I could inform you that you'll die 1/6 times you play russian roulette, but that doesn't mean that it should be ethically sound (or legal) to pay you to take that chance.
IIRC, the calculations from NASA says that for a trained individual, the value of a human life is around $50 million. 1/6 of that is $8.3 million.
It may be unethical to play russian roulette, but is it still unethical to choose to play if you were paid $8.3 million (given that much worth in utility) first? Why not?
On the other hand, mining for minerals also has risk. Miners in Australia are highly compensated for it, getting paid over $100,000 per year.
What difference is there between the scenarios, assuming everyone involved is fully informed?
If I don't take the opportunity to work in Australian mines, will I have a reasonable opportunity to find work and provide a comfortable living for my family?
If that answer would change whether or not I'd work in a mine, I'd consider that the work may be exploitative of a regional work shortage. At that point someone might feel as though sacrificing their health is their only option, and an informed decision is much harder to make.
Like many ethical questions, it warrants discussion even though there may not be a "right" answer either way.
>What's the rate for getting mesothelioma after working with asbestos?
That's a bad comparison. You don't just get a little bit of cancer. You get it or you don't and when it gets caught is what matters. Cognitive decline is not binary like that.
With asbestos it depends on how much exposure, how often and how long. PPE for use with high temperatures used to be asbestos before that was a liability. You don't see "served in an artillery unit in 'nam" on the TV commercials for the lawyers who litigate that stuff because only occasionally wearing asbestos gloves as part of your day job for a few years isn't a big deal. The same goes for doing brake jobs on your own vehicles since the '60s. It's not enough exposure. The advice for people who find it in their houses is to make sure it's not getting disturbed. Low levels of exposure = low risk. Sure, you can come up with an average decrease in life expectancy per some amount of exposure (this is popular with cigarettes) but it's not very meaningful when the result of the exposure to asbestos is a coin toss with worse odds years down the line.
Regardless, I'd take a slow death from age 45 to 65 if it meant that my family shot to the top of the economic ladder over the course of my career. Unless you really, really screw up wealth doesn't go away between generations.
* Building buildings that burn to the ground with everyone trapped inside
* Murder
So... I guess that America isn't a free country? If everyone was a perfectly informed perfectly rational expectation maximizer we wouldn't have any of these problems. But since none of those things are true, there're all sorts of predatory and greedy-counterproductive practices that are, yes, unacceptable, things that we have to ban for our civilization to continue to improve. I submit that american football, in its current form, is likely one of them. Too much glamour, too much money, too much tradition, too good at messing with people's heads, both in the way it sucks everyone into it (high school football!) and with the brain damage thing.
We don't ban selling cigarettes to adults, and tobacco use has plummeted since 1965. Building codes affect the general public. There is a clear and direct link between owner negligence and public harm. Building codes also help to reduce fraud and sheer incompetence among builders. It is easy to describe situations where fraud and criminal negligence leads to death and property damage to other people (not just yourself).
Meanwhile there are plenty of dangerous occupations, truck drivers, for example, that are not deemed unacceptable and banned by authoritarian morality police.
> If everyone was a perfectly informed perfectly rational expectation maximizer we wouldn't have any of these problems
This standard is hardly necessary. All that is necessary is to have sufficient information to take responsibility for decisions you make and their consequences. That is known as agency. Of course it's different if your decisions affect others. I could certainly see holding certain people or organizations (like the NFL) responsible if there has been some kind of cover-up about the long-term effects of concussions. But that's far different from a crude authoritarian ban.
> I submit that american football, in its current form, is likely one of them. Too much glamour, too much money, too much tradition, too good at messing with people's heads, both in the way it sucks everyone into it (high school football!) and with the brain damage thing.
In other words, you don't like football and you don't like the tradition, so you see no problem banning it. For you there's no downside, only upside.
No, banning is not necessary, at least not some kind of national ban issued from on high. It starts with education. Parents stop letting their children play Pop Warner. High schoolers in most of the country decide not to take the risks of playing football. HS football programs decline. College recruiting pools dry up, leading to a decline in the quality and popularity of College football. From there, it's anyone's guess how the NFL will survive.
Sure, it won't happen overnight. But I can assure you that the consequences of trying to issue an overnight ban of the most popular sport in the US would not be pretty.
I've seen plenty of articles headlined with something along the line of "should my kid play football?" If you knew your kid would have a 10% chance of developing CTE by playing the sport... well, I would think many parents would pause and reconsider. Certainly I would.
It's still a free country. Football is nowhere near the state of being "banned" or anything close to that. Plenty of other sports with probable worse concussion issues are also popular (see: MMA)
American football's huge prominence merely puts a bigger spotlight on this issue. In my opinion, the most likely outcome is equipment and/or rules changes. American football has changed rules and/or mandated equipment in the name of safety before.
It depends in the metric. In terms of {alcohol, marijuana, prostitution, hair braiding, etc}, there are at least parts of the US that are far from "free".
That concept is just marketing or propaganda, depending on who is pushing it.
The pure drivel is this response. I strongly object to bland appeals to authority to shut down things you don't like. There are strong arguments associated with the banning of most illegal behavior. Usually these arguments are also very specific, lead to very specific restrictions, and are implemented at the most relevant jurisdiction.
I don't want football to be illegal. But I also want the NFL to own up to and be fully transparent and forthcoming about the risks of the sport.
For example, it would be great if there was a short message before each game is aired that said "the sport you are about to watch is know to cause X in players. X is an extremely painful and debilitating condition." Then play a short clip of patients suffering from X.
Similarly, anyone who wants to become a player should be required to watch such a video educating them about the risks.
This response, "is the US a free country?" is a thought-terminating cliche.
It doesn't actually contribute to the discussion, it just derails it. "free country" is too vague to be meaningful; we have our freedoms curtailed in big and small ways all day every day. Wanna test this? Go ignore traffic lights. Go walk into someone else's house. Traffic laws and property rights are acceptable constraints on freedom, but they are still constraints on freedom.
Please, if you're going to contribute, make it a useful contribution.
It doesn't actually contribute to the discussion, it just derails it.
You did not quote my post in its entirety. Before the saying anything about the US being a free country, I asked a pointed, important question that the parent had left undefined. The OP glibly asserted that this was "unacceptable." I asked: "unacceptable to whom?" The glib question about US being a free country was rhetorical and intended to provide some context for interpreting the first, more important question.
In retrospect, I probably should have left it off, given that only one of six responses even attempted to address the more important question. It's no surprise that soundwave106's comment is far and away the most thoughtful and interesting response. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14851330.) I intended the 1st question to be literal and the 2nd question to be rhetorical. Instead everyone appears to have read the 2nd question to be literal and the 1st one to be rhetorical.
Does it pay better than a career as a dockworker or insulation installer over the course of each career?
Did it when the people being impacted by CTE today played?
I think most people overestimate the career earnings of the average football player and especially don't discount for the dramatic increase in pay that happened in the last 20 years?
Or the fact that an overwhelming majority of football players don't ever collect a paycheck. It isn't like all of these NFL players just started receiving brain damage once they reached the NFL at the age of 22. They probably started playing football in their early teens. Odds are no one else on that player's middle or high school teams and only a hand full of people on their college team made the NFL. Yet they were all subject to the same type of head trauma.
With that percentage - which is considered the unlikely minimum - there is at least one player developing CTE on the field for every team in the league right now.
