Asbestos is notoriously cancer causing, dangerous, EPA damning material that many, many homes, farms, buildings, etc. in America (and a few other countries) used heavily because of the properties espoused in the advertisement above.

And many people have suffered premature deaths as a result.

Asbestos was even used in the Wizard of Oz for the snow falling on the cast.

I had Asbestos in my ceiling in a home I purchased and had to pay $12k to remediate it. They wore masks, had negative pressure ventilation suits on, had to get EPA certifications, checks, etc.

It's brutal stuff.

To quote Wikipedia:

Asbestos is an excellent thermal and electrical insulator, and is highly fire resistant, so for much of the 20th century, it was very commonly used around the world as a building material.

It was also later discovered to cause lung cancer, mesothelioma and also because of its fibrous structure; it breaks into lots of tiny little microscopic needles when agitated. Those little shards get inhaled and poke tiny holes in your lungs which causes Asbestosis (kind of like Emphysema for smokers).