Breath taken: exposing the ongoing tragedy of asbestos

Health/Pac has been covering the asbestos tragedy for nearly 20 years, but never has the personal devastation and meaning of the industry cover-up been brought home more compellingly than in Bill Ravanesi's photographic exhibit, "Breath Taken: The Landscape and Biography of Asbestos." The exhibit opened at the Boston University Art Gallery in spring 1989 and continues to tour the country under the auspices of the Center for Visual Arts in the Public Interest. Debbie Socolar walks Health/Pac readers through this brief glimpse of the exhibit and summarizes some of the many issues it touches on in portraying the ongoing occupational, environmental, and public health disaster of asbestos.