There's a lot of other nastier industrial products. Asbestos is in the public consciousness as particularly bad because it was used widely before we know it reliably caused cancer.
That said, it also reliably gives people cancer so it's bad reputation is not exactly undeserved.
To provide something of a counterpoint, asbestosis is a disease from the modern society, filled with opportunity. So is being run down by a car, hit by an air-to-ground missile, or blinded by a laser.
It's not quite so one-sided as it might at first appear.
The awful thing is is that when this video was being made, the dangers of Asbestos were already known and had been established decades earlier. Some of the applications don’t even make all that much sense, and are very much a case of trying to foist whatever you’re able to produce onto a gullible public.
Capital owners and governments could conceivably have used the substance in a responsible way without exposing workers and consumers to additional risk, but it would probably have lowered their appetite for spreading it all over the environment if they had borne the costs upfront.
Considering that they used to make vehicle brake linings out of the rotten stuff until the late 20th century, it’s clear that no such attempts were made. Even though the first documented death was in 1906.
Asbestos in brakes is bad but it's a not really a concern even from. Chinese pads anymore, but there are still lots of harmful things they give off even still. Asbestos is just well known.
https://www.asbestos.com/exposure/automobiles/
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