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I very much sympathize with your grief. Asbestosis is a deadly disease. It was a problem in the workplace, where people were exposed over and over. Wives contracted it from shaking out their husbands clothing. No one should have to die from trying to earn a living. I never meant to trivialize the risks from asbestos exposure, only to put them in some perspective, and I don't feel the risk from gasket material is significant. I have had many hours of asbestos awareness, handling, abatement, and disposal training in the oil and gas industry. However, the same or greater risks are present from smoking and second hand smoke. I have had friends die a very difficult death from lung cancer. It is serious business as well. Smoking and asbestos are a more serious combination. Asbestos was outlawed but smoking was not. Asbestos fibers have to be airborne and inhaled to cause asbestosis. Different people have different levels of tolerance, just as they do for cigarette smoke. In a refinery I worked in, we had an 80 year old retiree who smoked. His job had been to grind up old asbestos insulation to recycle it to make new insulation. This was before the days of respirators, and he smoked while inhaling large amounts of asbestos for many years. He never contracted cancer or asbestosis. I do not run screaming from a room because I smell second hand smoke. But I should. In my mind, second hand smoke is much more serious than occasional asbestos exposure. Using a wire brush to remove what gasket material does not come off easily is probably being used to remove mostly adhesive anyway. Using a wire brush on flaky old gasket material may put a lot of asbestos material into the air, but if the gasket material is easily removed, you probably aren't using the wire brush anyway. To cause damage, the asbestos fibers really need to be floating freely in the air. Fibers that are stuck in glue may make a dust, but if the fibers are just part of a dust particle and don't have free ends, their opportunity to irritate the lungs is going to be greatly diminished. I scrape gaskets, and I don't use air pressure to clean brake parts any more. Those are easy things to improve safety. But I still have asbestos shingles on my house. They do not present any safety hazard. The chances of contracting asbestosis from casual contact are real. The chances of contracting asbestosis from no known contact are real. The chances of contracting asbestosis-like disease from fiberglass are real. But the chances of a non-smoker getting lung cancer from second-hand smoke are even greater. They are all very small chances. You can get cancer from used motor oil. Do you adequately protect yourself from contacting used motor oil? Do you use latex gloves when you wipe a dipstick to avoid oil bleed through from the rag or paper towell to your fingers? Do you sand blast with silica sand? Do you use spray cans of paint without a respirator? To me it boils down to the fact that there are risks of living, and if you do things, you take a risk. It is to each individual to assess and manage their own risk. The government certainly is giving us plenty of guidelines. Do you wear a respirator when you use a grinder on paint? Or on galvanized material? Or on stainless steel? Do you use a respirator while welding? In Oklahoma, if you have asbestos in your private property which needs to be abated, it is permissible for you to do the work yourself with no license or training. After double bagging, it can be disposed of in any landfill. This is because of the very remote risk during short term exposure. If your full-time job is removing asbestos-laden gaskets, or you hire others to do the same, the activity should be tested for dispersal of free fibers and you must wear appropriate protective equipment.
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