Another "we don't give a ****" industry.

Fibreglass: a carcinogen that's everywhere

13 September 1995
By Peter Montague
An industrial process for making glass fibres was first patented in Russia in 1840. At the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, Edward Libbey exhibited lamp shades, a dress, and other articles woven from glass fibres. In 1915, the Allied forces blockaded Germany, creating an asbestos shortage which resulted in commercial production of fibreglass in the US, as an asbestos substitute.

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Fibreglass is now causing serious health concerns among US officials and health researchers. In a series of papers published from 1969 to 1977, Dr Mearl F. Stanton of the National Cancer Institute found that glass fibres less then 3 microns in diameter and greater than 20 microns in length are "potent carcinogens" in rats; and, he said in 1974, "it is unlikely that different mechanisms are operative in man".
Since that time, studies have continued to appear showing that fibres of this size not only cause cancer in laboratory animals, but also cause changes in the activity and chemical composition of cells, leading to changes in the genetic structure and in the cellular immune system. Although these cell changes may be more common (and possibly more important) than cancer, it is the cancer-causing potential of glass fibres that has attracted most attention.
In 1970, Dr Stanton announced that "it is certain that in the pleura of the rat, fibrous glass of small diameter is a potent carcinogen". The pleura is the outer casing of the lungs; cancer of the pleura in humans is called mesothelioma and is caused by asbestos fibres.
Stanton continued his research and showed that when glass fibres are manufactured as small as asbestos fibres, glass causes cancer in laboratory animals just as asbestos does. Asbestos is a potent human carcinogen, which will have killed an estimated 300,000 US workers by the end of this century.
The finding that fibreglass causes diseases similar to asbestos was chilling news in the early 1970s, and an additional 25 years of research have not made the problem seem less serious.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/1995/202/11192