No. The white is not asbestos. It's oxidized lead. Another little thing to be careful of! The foot controller might still have two asbestos washers inside between the ceremic and the external casing. I usually replace the washers with phenolic ones while wearing eye protection, a dust mask and gloves. I use kerosene to clean the lead tube as well as possible. You basically don't want the oxidation to be falling into the gear beneath and getting ground up.