Paul Brodeur, Reporter Who Exposed the Hazards of Asbestos, Dies at 92

Paul Brodeur, whose deeply reported articles in The New Yorker introduced nationwide consideration to topics just like the poisonous hazards of asbestos and the damaging impression of chlorofluorocarbons on the ozone layer, died on Aug. 2 in Hyannis, Mass. He was 92.

His loss of life, in a hospital, was brought on by problems of pneumonia and hip alternative surgical procedure, mentioned his daughter, the novelist and memoirist Adrienne Brodeur.

Mr. Brodeur’s first long-form article for The New Yorker, “The Magic Mineral,” printed in 1968, described at nice size the historical past of asbestos, a heat-resistant fiber with a historical past of being utilized in 1000’s of merchandise — together with constructing and insulation supplies, rugs, potholders, roofing, navy helmets and fuel masks — and its connection to most cancers, significantly mesothelioma, amongst staff who had been uncovered to it.

“There is not an automobile, airplane, train, ship, missile or engine of any sort that does not contain asbestos in some form or other, and it has found its way into literally every building, factory, home and farm across the land,” he wrote. “And, because its minuscule fibers are eminently respirable, asbestos has also found its way into the lungs of man, where, by remaining as indestructible as it does in nature, it can wreak terrible havoc.”

It was the kind of exposé that known as to thoughts the groundbreaking work of Rachel Carson, whose guide “Silent Spring,” in regards to the devastating ecological impression of pesticides and pesticides like DDT, had been serialized in three elements in The New Yorker in 1962.

William Shawn, the editor of the journal on the time, had inspired Ms. Carson, after which Mr. Brodeur, to put in writing in regards to the atmosphere. Mr. Brodeur continued to put in writing about asbestos, most notably in two sequence over the following 20 years.

The first, unfold over 5 elements in 1973, examined the impression of asbestos on staff and the failure of federal companies to maintain firms from exposing staff to myriad well being penalties. It gained The New Yorker a National Magazine Award.

The second sequence, in 1985, was about lawsuits filed by victims towards asbestos firms, together with the Manville Corporation, the world’s largest producer, which filed for Chapter 11 chapter safety in 1982.

“He wrote in such a way that people learned what asbestos was, where it was found and how people could be exposed to it,” Dr. Richard Lemen, a former assistant United States surgeon common, mentioned in a cellphone interview. He added, “I think his reporting had a big impact on the industry; it took notice, and it had to clean up its act.”

At the start of the primary sequence, Mr. Brodeur described a dialog he had with Clarence Holder, an assistant regional administrator of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in Dallas, in regards to the unsafe circumstances at a not too long ago shuttered asbestos insulation plant in Tyler, Texas, the place mud was so thick that staff couldn’t see throughout the constructing.

“I asked Holder if he knew that asbestos inhalation could raise not only pulmonary scarring but lung cancer, mesothelioma and other malignancies,” Mr. Brodeur wrote. “He replied that he had never heard of mesothelioma and that he doubted if there was any real proof that asbestos could cause cancer.”

The Environmental Protection Agency tried to ban the usage of asbestos use in 1989. The effort was overturned by a federal court docket two years later, however the ruling retained prohibitions towards new makes use of of asbestos. It remains to be used within the manufacture of family bleach, bulletproof vests, electrical insulation and automotive merchandise.

Paul Adrian Brodeur Jr. was born on May 16, 1931, in Boston and grew up in close by Arlington, Mass. His father, who fought as an artillery officer within the French Army throughout World War I, was an orthodontist and a sculptor of bronze bas-relief portraits. His mom, Sarah (Smith) Brodeur, was an actress who turned a professor of early childhood training at Endicott College in Beverly, Mass.

After graduating from Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., Mr. Brodeur attended Harvard, the place he majored in English and graduated with a bachelor’s diploma in 1953. He then served for 2 years as an Army counterintelligence agent in Europe.

He stayed in Paris for a 12 months after his discharge and offered a brief story, “The Sick Fox,” an allegory in regards to the postwar temper in Germany, to The New Yorker in 1957. He turned it into his first novel, printed in 1963.

After becoming a member of the journal’s workers in 1958, Mr. Brodeur initially wrote Talk of the Town items, commentaries and quick tales.

He had a fame at The New Yorker as a troublesome, punctilious and pugnacious reporter.

“He’s a feisty individual,” Anthony Bailey, one other workers author, instructed The New York Observer (now identified merely as Observer) in 2014. “He reminds me, in many ways, of the French writers of the 19th century — people like Zola, who got very worked up about justice.”

In addition to asbestos, Mr. Brodeur received labored up about hazards like aerosol sprays and air-conditioners that emitted chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which has led to a breakdown within the ozone layer. In 1975, he was among the many first to report, on the ozone layer’s depletion. In a second article, in 1986, he described the impacts of a gap within the ozone layer, together with modifications in crop yields, greater pores and skin most cancers charges and the killing of the larvae of seafood species, together with shrimp and crab.

A. Karim Ahmed, a former analysis director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, mentioned that Mr. Brodeur’s 1975 article influenced federal companies just like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Consumer Product Safety Commission as CFCs started to be phased out nicely earlier than a 1987 worldwide treaty, the Montreal Protocol, began to manage the manufacturing and consumption of chemical substances that injury the ozone layer.

“His article and our work helped give the U.S. a head start in phasing out CFCs over everyone else,” Dr. Ahmed mentioned in a cellphone interview.

Mr. Brodeur additionally reported on the attainable risks of radiation from microwave ovens, pc terminals and electromagnetic energy traces. But this reporting was not as broadly accepted as his work on asbestos and CFCs.

In 1997, the National Academy of Sciences discovered little to no proof of any threat from power-line radiation. Other research have been removed from conclusive. (Mr. Brodeur famous, nonetheless, that the World Health Organization categorised microwave radiation from cellphones to be a attainable carcinogen.)

And in 2019, the science journalist William J. Broad of The Times discovered that in his 1977 guide, “The Zapping of America: Microwaves, Their Deadly Risk, and the Cover-Up,” Mr. Brodeur had relied on “suggestive but often ambiguous evidence to argue” that the rising use of the excessive frequencies of microwaves might endanger human well being.

Like “The Zapping of America,” lots of Mr. Brodeur’s nonfiction books grew out of his reporting for The New Yorker. Among them had been “Outrageous Misconduct: The Asbestos Industry on Trial” (1985); “Currents of Death” (1989); and “The Great Power-Line Cover-Up: How the Utilities and the Government Are Trying to Hide the Cancer Hazard Posed by Electromagnetic Fields” (1993).

He additionally wrote one other novel, “The Stunt Man” (1970), a few younger Army deserter who turns into a stuntman for a tyrannical director. It was tailored into a movie in 1980 starring Peter O’Toole because the director and Steve Railsback because the title character.

Mr. Brodeur printed a memoir, “Secrets: A Writer in the Cold War,” in 1997.

In addition to his daughter, he’s survived by his son, Stephen; three grandchildren; and his sister, Valjeanne Paxton. His marriages to Malabar Schleiter and Margaret Staats resulted in divorce. He had separated from his third spouse, Milane Christiansen, earlier than her loss of life in 2013. His brother, David, died in 2019. Another son, Alan, died in infancy.

Mr. Brodeur discovered when he was in faculty that he had one other brother, Adrian Paul Brodeur, from his father’s earlier marriage. He died in 1992. Paul and Adrian by no means met.

Mr. Brodeur left The New Yorker shortly after Tina Brown took over as editor in 1992.

His last article was, fittingly, a reminder of Rachel Carson’s legacy.

After citing the implications for breast most cancers prevention present in a latest research that confirmed that girls with the best publicity to DDT had been 4 instances extra prone to develop breast most cancers than ladies with the least publicity, he concluded:

“Rachel Carson lives.”