Filomena has shown us what it is to snow well. ¿Can you imagine if those snowflakes that fell would have been asbestos? It sounds like a dystopia, but it was a real thing. Asbestos, responsible for mesothelioma, a deadly cancer, has been used as artificial snow in Christmas decorations. Artificial asbestos snow was a bad idea, a deadly idea. Use it on building materials, too.
The current pandemic has reminded us of the importance of airborne transmission of infectious pathogens such as tuberculosis and toxic like asbestosis. The former usually kill quickly. Toxicants, like asbestos, kill slowly. But they all kill. And all the lives they end before time.
Courtesy of Tony Rich.
Due to miraculous physical properties of the minerals from which it is obtained, asbestos or asbestos has been used from very old for a wide variety of manufactured products, mainly in construction materials, friction mechanical products, flame retardant textiles, packaging and coatings. The toxicity of asbestos is due to the inhalation of the fibers that float in the polluted air of the factories and workshops where it is handled, and near the emission sources inside homes and premises built or lined with materials that contain it.
Many buildings built during Spanish developmentalism and at least until the 90s of the last century contain materials made from chrysotile (white asbestos) or are soundproofed with blue asbestos crocidoliteTherefore, they remain a source of exposure to fibers during maintenance, renovation or demolition.
The old RTVE buildings in Prado del Rey were no exception.
The history of RTVE owes a place of honor to José María Íñigo. Programs like Open Study, in which it reached more than thirty million viewers, Very direct, Tonight party, Today 14:15 O Fantastic they were a renovation that gripped viewers from 1968 to 1985.
He returned in 2004 with the program Adjustment Letter and sporadically as a collaborator in different programs. In 2017, when he was already a victim of cancer, he presented the Eurovision Song Contest for the last time. The following year he passed away.
Íñigo was in optimal health conditions until the end of December 2015, when a strange respiratory difficulty forced his hospitalization. During hospitalization, they detected a pleural effusion which, after a whole battery of medical tests, led to the diagnosis of pleural mesothelioma.
From that moment everything went from bad to worse. Despite painful chemotherapy sessions, the worsening was progressive and he had successive hospitalizations until in May 2018 his name was added to the list of famous deceased for mesothelioma.
Mesothelioma is a tumor associated exclusively with asbestos. To say mesothelioma is to say asbestos. What relationship did Íñigo have with asbestos? The answer is that a good part of his success was achieved through determination, effort and hours, many hours, too many hours, in the Prado del Rey studios.
The TVE studios in Prado del Rey were inaugurated in 1964. Studio 1, one of the largest sets in Europe, had an area of 1,200 square meters. To isolate it from outside noise and achieve the best possible absorption acoustics, the walls and ceilings were covered with a sprayed insulation of a binder and blue asbestos fiber, which solved much of the acoustic problem.
RTVE
As with all materials crumbly, the insulation began to deteriorate rapidly, to the point that there are witnesses who testify that in the 70s and 80s «the programs facing the public, whose ovations caused vibrations in the structure of the set, made a fine“ drizzle ”of grayish dust, perfectly visible through the beam of the spotlights, fell on the workers and about the rest of the personnel present there.
The dust consisted of fibers of crocidolite, the most dangerous variety of asbestos. In case the friable asbestos mortar spray was not toxic enough, most of the special effects were made with asbestos dust and cardboard, therefore, as in the case of the Madrid Metro, all workers have been at risk from exposure to fibers.
In the 1980s, attempts were made to encapsulate asbestos with partial and temporary barriers to prevent the rain of fibers from falling directly on those who worked or visited the studios. Although the results of tests carried out between 2003 and 2005 indicated that the permitted environmental exposure limits were not exceeded, it was decided that asbestos had to be removed.
In October 2011, the RTVE Board decided to invest 70 million euros to dismantle or demolish several of the studios. According to TVE workers, the day the dismantling of the facilities began was also the last time they had news of the thousands of attrezzo items stored and impregnated with asbestos fibers that were sent encapsulated to the landfill.
In 2019, the sole administrator of RTVE, Rosa María Mateo, launched a new “heartless operation”. It did so after learning about an audit that discovered new and serious deficiencies that can seriously affect the health of employees. For Íñigo it was too late.
The mesothelioma that ended his life was, without a doubt, of professional origin, derived exclusively from his work at RTVE. Despite this, the company, the Social Security and the Mutual Insurance Company deny him recognition of Occupational Illness. A fight for their rights that, unfortunately, is common for many workers who die from mesothelioma, to whom, as with the Madrid Metro workers, it takes them years to get.
On Thursday, January 21, in the Social Courts of Madrid, the claim for a declaration of Occupational Illness presented by his family will be settled. José María Íñigo, who started the procedure to request recognition of Occupational Disease when pleural mesothelioma was diagnosed, will not be able to see it concluded.
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