| Book Review | Environmental History, 12.1

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| Book Review | Environmental History, 12.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Environmental Public Health Policy for Asbestos on Schools: Unintended Consequences. By Jacqueline Karnell Corn. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2000. 141 pp. Cloth $69.95.
This overlooked book is a history of an extremely contentious question in environmental policy: what to do about asbestos contamination and low-level exposure in schools. In the absence of scientific certainty, Corn writes, policy choices are forced into an arena where scientific and political partisanship distort optimum public policy. As a result, the presentation and perception of an issue assumes greater importance. "Different scientists analyzed the same facts and reached different conclusions," she says. "As a result, scientific controversy was transformed into vituperative public debate."	1
Corn's book begins with a scholarly general history of asbestos and the discovery of its harmful effects in the workplace. With clarity and precision, Corn dissects the problem of assessing risk for non-occupational exposures. Most of the history focuses on the development of the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA) in 1985 and on the effects of the asbestos debate on school systems. A prime example of the impact was a twenty-day hiatus of school operations in New York in September 1993. Corn suggests that New York schools became confused by conflicting scientific views and the result was a public embarrassment.	. . .

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