Asbestos and the WTC

[peragro]

A friend sent me this picture tonight. I should disclose that I'm certified to identify, quantify and remove asbestos. When I have the oppurtunity I choose to leave it and manage it in place. It really is a wonderful substance with huge potential benefit to mankind and some down sides; like anything really. Not just my personal opinion but New England Journal of Medicine agrees with me:

Originally Posted by NEJM

NEJM also reported:

Recent epidemiological studies of persons with low exposure to asbestos either occupationally or environmentally provide little support for the concept that there is an increased risk of lung cancer when asbestos concentrations are at levels several hundred or thousand times lower than those found in workplace situations in the past.

The NEJM study went on to cite five studies (none of which, incidentally, appear elsewhere in this article) of persons exposed to asbestos which "show no statistically significant excess cases of lung cancer when concentrations of fibers are low."

The study concludes: "In the absence of epidemiological data or estimations of risk that indicate that the health risks of environmental exposure to asbestos are large enough to justify high expenditure of public funds, one must question the unprecedented expenses on the order of $100 billion to $150 billion that could result from asbestos abatement."

So I'm not real clear on exactly what happened at the WTC regarding the asbestos. Two ways I think it might have went. 1. WTC was built right at the wrong time and the asbestos lagging on the steel only went so high. Planes impacted higher than the asbestos was installed. 2. Port Authority was forced to remove the lagging after fighting in court not too. Perhaps a combination of the two, I don't know. (Does anyone else)

My main questions: Would asbestos have helped slow the collapse and thus saved more lives? Was it removed to satisfy some, at the time, current scare-fest put on by the media, politicians and trial lawyers?

I can't help think of carbon credits...