Asbestos is bad for you, however, you can handle it safely. Use a mask, paint the asbestos with pva adhesive or coat with silicone aka mastic to prevent the fibres getting airborne, it’s safe if left alone, drilling holes, breaking it can release fibres, they are sharp and pointy and tiny, if you breath them they get in your lungs, the stuff is inert but the problem is when the little macrophages try to deal with them by enveloping them, well they can’t.
The cell membrane gets punctured, and dragging them causes scarring, this can lead to mesothelioma or lung cancer.
I’ve worked with asbestos, even worn it by way of gloves, jacket and trousers
I’ve breathed it and it has caused the scarring in the lungs but I’m hoping I die of death before I die of mesothelioma, lung function gets impaired but not much in my case. The nasty one is blue asbestos ( it made Johnson’s baby powder blue! Who’d have guessed it’s bad for babies sprinkling talc cut with blue asbestos over them, genius why waste it. It’s been suppressed in the media for years, they just ignore it and carry on)
Blue was used a lot in pipe lagging, there’s still loads of asbestos insulated cable still about but as I said, clear silicone mastic smeared over it stop the nasty getting airborne, after that just leave it alone.
There are commercial paint on products to stabilise it ( essentially silicone thinned with naphthalene from what I can determine, a product illegal in the U.K.!)
Mark