[HN] Paul Brodeur, journalist who exposed asbestos hazards, dies at 92

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• autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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  Paul Brodeur, who wrote evocative, richly detailed short stories and novels but was best-known for his crusading environmental journalism in the pages of the New Yorker, notably in articles that helped expose the health hazards of asbestos and the danger that industrial chemicals posed to the ozone layer, died Aug. 2 at a hospital in Hyannis, Mass.

  Mr. Brodeur continued to report on asbestos for the next 15 years, chronicling its use in building insulation, the dangers it posed even as a dust brought home on people’s clothes, and the efforts of industry officials and their allies to keep the substance on the market.

  He went on to detail research suggesting that a hole in the ozone could threaten to alter weather patterns, damage crops and elevate skin cancer rates, a year before the production of CFCs and other ozone-depleting chemicals was phased out as part of the 1987 Montreal Protocol, an international treaty.

  While Mr. Brodeur was widely hailed for his reporting on asbestos and the ozone layer, some scientists said he was unnecessarily alarmist, even conspiratorial, in raising concern about potential health effects caused by power lines, cellphones and other household devices.

  His fascination with secrecy stemmed in part from a discovery he made as a college senior, when he learned from a chaperone at a school dance that he had an older half brother from his father’s earlier marriage, never spoken of by his parents, who shared Mr. Brodeur’s first and middle names, only in reverse.

  After serving in West Germany with the Army Counter Intelligence Corps, he spent a year in Paris, where he wrote his first piece for the New Yorker, an acid-dipped short story called “The Sick Fox,” inspired by his experiences with military bureaucracy.

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