Fram Air Filters - Fibers in your diet.

Phil Are GO! has presented hard-hitting journalistic expose's on the hazards of asbestos in the past, and today is kind of another one, sort of. In 1957, Fram offered this send-away promotion for a pizza kit, featuring a gaily decorated asbestos cushioned stove mat. I try to keep asbestos away from my food, but... you say it's gaily decorated? Okay, sign me up.

Dear Fram: Please get your racial stereotypes right. Chef Sepe is clearly wearing a French moustache, when everybody knows pizza is commonly misunderstood to be an Italian creation.

It's not like Fram is asking us to rub asbestos ON our pizza. It's only a gaily decorated asbestos cushioned stove mat. But to our ears, this is like inviting us to pull our piping-hot pizza from the oven, and place it on a mat made from the Ebola virus. It's not like you're eating Ebola. You're only using it to cool off your pizza, so calm the eff down.

Sure, we could judge Fram, with all our modern knowledge and understanding, but maybe we should take the high road? Maybe we should try and understand that, at the time, Fram didn't have the benefit of our decades of research. After all, the first observed asbestos-related health issues were only observed by the Greeks around 100 A.D., and medical articles documenting the hazards of asbestos only date back to 1898. Sure, it's easy for us to be hard on Fram with our 1,913 years of perspective. But, try and imagine how hard it must have been to truly understand the dangers of asbestos with only 1,857 years of evidence behind you?

By way of example, we barely know that Ford Pintos explode. After all, that information only came to
light in 1972, which was only thirtywhatever years ago. We need more time to grasp the danger of driving an exploding vehicle whose design flaws were judged "too expensive" to be fixed properly by the manufacturer, who decided that it was more cost effective to allow people to die in fiery explosions and pay the legal fees than to pay for a vehicle recall for around $100 $11 per car.

In another 1,883 years, we will definitely be able to say for sure that the Pinto was a poorly designed car whose appalling safety issues were covered up by the manufacturer so that it could be sold to families who would meet their fiery doom in them. But for now, because the information is so new, we can only assume that Pintos are completely safe. Why, just last night, I used a Ford Pinto to beat out a kitchen fire when I left my bread in the toaster too long. I won't really understand the foolishness of my actions for another 1,800 years.

See? Now don't you feel bad? Maybe the real monsters are you and me?

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