I interpreted the original comment as saying that C is detrimental to the long term health of a piece of software in a similar way to how asbestos is detrimenta

I interpreted the original comment as saying that C is detrimental to the long term health of a piece of software in a similar way to how asbestos is detrimental to the long term health of humans. I don’t think there was any suggestion made that C is detrimental to human health.