Communications Scare

AS HARVARD SEEKS to develop the strength of the minds of its students, it must also show concern for the health of their bodies. Though University Health Services' Dunbar Lab has committed at least seven workers and a $200,000 budget to an asbestos removal program over the past eight years, ironically it was a plumber on routine maintenance--not a health inspector--who discovered exposed asbestos insulation in a bathroom in a freshman dorm two weeks ago.

The potentially cancer-causing asbestos is the predominant insulation material in many Harvard buildings, and the University's clean-up program goes above and beyond the letter of the law. However, an asbestos scare--something usually associated with heavy industry plants--has no place at Harvard. While the health hazard is under control, the hazard to the University's relation with its students remains.

Committing money and job hours to a program that directly concerns and depends upon the cooperation of students, and then not informing them is bad policy. It confirms what we would like to think is only the myth of Harvard's communication gap with its student body. In the case of the students in Mower Hall A-21, the Dunbar Lab officials ordered the inspection of the room but neglected to inform residents of removal plans and inspection findings or warn them about exposure to the carcinogen.

What needs to be addressed is not the negligence in this specific incident, but the Dunbar Lab's on-going policy of not keeping students informed of potential health hazards and clean-up efforts.

A Mower resident's report of the exposed asbestos took a tortuous route from North Yard Senior Advisor to Freshman Dean's Office to Yard Superintendent to Dunbar Lab three weeks later. Instead of leaving communication paths to the whim of a case-by-case piecemeal policy, the University should inform students about environmental health hazards.

If the insulation of the University's buildings has deteriorated, that between the University's clean-up program and its students works too well. It is the latter that is particularly hazardous to maintaining an open, informed and healthy community.