With asbestos, it's not so much a trade-off as it will continue to be a possible hazard unless it's disposed of correctly. I can relate to a homeowner not wanting to pay for testing/removing asbestos ceiling tiles etc. but if they don't then any disruption to those tiles can release potentially lethal fibres into the air (asbestos doesn't have a "safe" dose, so it's not like it can be rationalised with "I only made a small hole in that tile").

Comparison with medical technologies isn't particularly valid as people can choose whether to have that treatment or not, but people can't easily choose whether their house was built with asbestos or not. If a house was already built, then the potential danger is already there and we can either deal with it sensibly or not care about the deadly consequences of releasing it into the environment.

I don't see the logic of not punishing retroactively as companies may have made a lot of profit and then pay nothing towards the clean-up costs - privatise the profit and socialise the costs. The homeowners/tenants are effectively being punished retroactively when they may suspect/discover that their house contains asbestos, so why should the builders (if they are still around) not have to pay?

Maybe there should be extra taxes imposed on industries with a history of environmental abuse to reclaim some of the costs to society.

The EPA’s own documentation states that Asbestos is primarily an occupational hazard. If the fibers are not embedded in a friable material you will not get any significant exposure. Occupational hazards are those encountered routinely by someone engaging in an occupation. So harvey the homeowner isn’t at much increased risk if he removes asbestos himself as long as he takes precautions and cleans up afterward. It’s a fiber and a dust not some magic material that soaks in through your skin. And obviously don’t start a business removing asbestos for people without doing the licensing.

Fiberglass batts are really bad to handle too, and same with gypsum dust and saw dust from cutting manufactured stone countertops. If you do anything indoors you should definitely wear a respirator and full sleeves.

> It’s a fiber and a dust not some magic material that soaks in through your skin

I feel you're being a bit flippant with the known danger of disturbing asbestos containing materials. The dust and fibres are typically too fine to be controlled by a household vacuum cleaner and will require specialist handling to minimise the risk. Yes, the dust isn't absorbed through the skin, but instead is breathed in and enters the lungs where it causes problems.

You're right about using respirators/masks when dealing with dust, but special care needs to be taken with asbestos dust and not all dust masks will protect your lungs from the dust/fibres.

Whether or not specific regulations exist for a particular danger, if a company or individual can be found to be aware of the negative consequences of their use of certain compounds and they don't publicly document those dangers they can (in the US anyway) and should absolutely be held legally accountable for failure to warn.

History is rife with companies/industries who were well aware of the dangers they were creating to people for decades while actively suppressing the evidence of such that they themselves discovered.

Which companies this applies to for Asbestos in particular, I couldn't tell you, but it would be shocking if there weren't lots of bad actors who knew they were bad actors considering there has been research on the dangers of Asbestos since 1927 -- nearly a full century ago.