Corruption & cutbacks expose students to asbestos hazards

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In 1980, the Asbestos School and Hazard Control Act was enacted, setting standards of acceptable levels of asbestos in school buildings. Nevertheless, the San Francisco School District, with the help of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pretended that the law governing standards of asbestos was They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars giving away contracts to consultants, architects, and contractors to help them cover up the truth about the disastrous state Robert Hart, a janitor at McAteer High School and a 20-year veteran in the school district, died of asbestosrelated disease. The school district suppressed the news.

Parents, students, teachers, clerks, and janitors at McAteer organized to fight for the right to breathe. We met with the White Lung Association. With their knowledge and help, we refused to be turned around in THE LATEST IN SAN FRANCISCO BACK-TOour belief that McAteer was a toxic dump, too dangerous We held meeting after meeting with the school district.

We pleaded with the school board. We joined the district's asbestos-control council. Finally, we organized a one-day boycott of McAteer. Out of 2100 students, The ineptitude, incompetence, corruption, political SAN FRANCISCO In September 1986, my son and patronage, and lack of morality on the part of the school his friends entered McAteer High School. I was shocked district was exposed. School-district officials are under by the physical space. I saw a building without investigation by the District Attorney's office and we windows, with unlit hallways, and with closets called McAteer has been closed down for asbestos removal.

But worst of all, the building's forced-air ventilation Eighty-seven San Francisco schools are slated for system spewed out a constant stream of millions of Asbestos is a mineral mined from the earth. It breaks And yet the struggle continues. The problem of down its length into hair-like fibers that, when inhaled, asbestos reflects the fact that the basic right to a free and pierce the human lung like little slivers of steel. safe education for everyone is under attack. California Asbestos can cause lung cancer, asbestosis, (a scarring of ranks 48th out of 50 states in money for education. the lining of the lung), or mesothelioma, a rare and In San Francisco, students at Lincoln High School sit SCHOOL FASHIONS... classrooms.

asbestos fibers. meaningless. to be inhabited.

2000 stayed out.

expect indictments.

asbestos cleanup. incurable cancer of the lining of the chest. of asbestos in the schools.

Asbestos at McAteer remained a fact of life.

"The right to breathe"

Victims of the system bought 120,000 tons last year alone bers.

more years of exposure. healthy and productive. decay. justice.

accused in the Trials of 1936-38... be immediately rehabilitated, their honor restored, their families compensated, and their graves marked."

The recent U.S. signatories include: Pete Seeger, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Dan Gallin, Paul M. Sweezy, Harry Magdoff, George Wald, Raymond Markey, Stan Weir, Louis Menashe, Harold Leventhal, Eybal Ahmad, Abraham Bloom, Craig Reinarman, Rosalyn Baxandall, Dr. Louis Harap, Walter Cohen, Juliet Ucelli, Alan Wald, Bill Henning, Mary Boger, Ellen W. Schrecker, Conrad Lynn, Morris U. Schappes, James Kavanagh, Dr. Jeffrey Botz, Leslie Evans, Robert C. Brenner, Deborah percent of their children also suffered disease are now seeing 15 to 17 cases a day -N.W.

We welcome letters from our readers.

Please keep them brief.

Where necessary, they will be abridged.

Jordan, Gloria Esenwein, Roxanne Qualls, Janice Jackson, and Robert Moore.

Anyone interested in signing this statement (please write to request copy) should write to Moscow Trials Campaign Committee, c/o P.O. Box No. 318, Gracie Station, New York, N.Y. 10028.

New York, N.Y.