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ASBESTOS Q & AAsbestos1. What is Asbestos? There has been a lot of public concern about asbestos in the workplace and in the environment, and for good reason. Asbestos is a dangerous substance and there is probably no "safe" level of exposure to asbestos in the work environment. Exposure to asbestos in schools homes and public buildings probably does not pose a serious health risk unless the asbestos is damaged or disturbed. However, individuals who have had significant occupational exposure to asbestos are at risk of developing a variety of diseases caused by inhalation of asbestos fibers. This pamphlet has been prepared to help you learn more about how asbestos may affect you. If you have any further questions, ask your doctor. 1. What is Asbestos?Asbestos is a mineral that consists of very fine, microscopic, needle-shaped fibers. The fibers are so small that you cannot see them unless the concentration in the air is very heavy. Asbestos is an excellent material for many uses. It is strong, resists heat, acids, and friction, and is virtually indestructible! Because of these properties, asbestos was often combined with other materials for use in industry and construction. The following is only a partial list of the many types of materials that could contain asbestos:
Asbestos becomes a health hazard only when these materials crumble, fall apart, are damaged or ripped. When asbestos materials are damaged like this, fibers are released into the air, where they may stay suspended for a long time. Asbestos can then be inhaled and the fibers can lodge deeply in the lungs. 2. How Can Asbestos Affect My Health?Asbestos fibers can cause serious health problems when they are inhaled. The problem is with the shape and length of the fibers, not their chemical composition. When the asbestos fibers are breathed in, they can become trapped in lung tissue. After being inhaled, the fibers can also be coughed up and swallowed or distributed throughout the body from the lungs via the lymph system. Here is a list of diseases caused by inhalation of asbestos fibers. ASBESTOSIS AND ASBESTOS-RELATED Asbestosis and asbestos-related pleural disease are benign (nonmalignant) diseases affecting the lung and lining of the lung caused by inhalation of asbestos fibers. Asbestosis is a scarring of the lungs normally caused by heavy exposures to asbestos fibers over a period of many years. The lungs produce scar tissue as a reaction to the irritation from the fibers. This scarring is called fibrosis. The more asbestos fibers you inhale, the worse the scarring or fibrosis tends to become. In time, the scarring may interfere with the amount of air you can inhale and the ability of oxygen to pass through your lung tissue and be absorbed by your bloodstream. This, in turn, causes difficulty with breathing and makes you short of breath. The reduction in oxygen can also strain your heart. If you have asbestosis, you may have shortness of breath, fatigue, and/or a dry cough. The first symptom of asbestos-related lung disease is usually shortness of breath on exertion, which then worsen as the disease progresses. Asbestos-related pleural disease (often called pleural thickening or pleural plaques) is a similar scarring that occurs in the lining of the lung. Asbestosis and asbestos-related pleural disease normally take at least 10-1 5 years after the first exposure to develop. It is possible to develop asbestosis many years after you stop working around the material. The disease is a permanent condition and there is no cure. Once asbestos fibers become trapped in your lungs they remain there. It is also known as a progressive disease because the trapped fibers can continue to cause additional injury for years after exposure ceases. LUNG CANCERCancer is the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells. There are several causes of lung cancer. Asbestosis is one of the causes. Smoking is another. The combination of smoking and asbestos is particularly dangerous as the two substances interact to greatly increase the risk of lung cancer. It normally takes at least 20 years after exposure to asbestos to develop lung cancer. Indeed, you may develop lung cancer many years after you stop working around asbestos because some of the asbestos you in haled is trapped in your lungs and can't be removed. Most lung cancer associated with asbestos is from large exposures over a period of many years. However, it might take less exposure to cause lung cancer than it takes to cause asbestosis. MESOTHELIOMAThis is a very rare type of cancer. When it develops, mesothelioma is almost always caused by asbestos. There are two types: Pleural Mesothelioma (cancer of the pleura, which is the membrane that lines the lungs and chest cavity), and Peritoneal Mesothelioma (cancer of the peritoneum, which is the lining of the abdomen). Mesothelioma, like other cancers, will not normally develop for many
years after first exposure to asbestos. However, some people have developed
mesothelioma many years after only small or short-term exposure to asbestos.
Family members have developed mesothelioma merely from being around a
worker's contaminated clothing. OTHER CANCERSAsbestos can also cause cancer of the digestive tract, affecting the stomach, colon, larynx, or esophagus. These cancers are called Gastrointestinal Cancers. It has also been implicated in causing kidney cancer and some types of lymphoma. Again, these types of cancer normally result only from heavy exposures to asbestos. Experts think that asbestos fibers that are coughed up and then swallowed or that have been distributed throughout the body via the lymph system may be responsible for these diseases.
3. What Are My Chances of Getting Sick From Asbestos?Your risk, or chance, of getting a disease depends on certain conditions. These conditions are called risk factors. For asbestos-related disease, the first risk factor is how much asbestos you breathed. This is called the dose. The second risk factor is the length of exposure-how many hears did you work with asbestos? This is called duration. In other words, your risk of getting sick increases with increases in dose and/or duration. If one person worked around asbestos for five years and someone else worked in the same job for 15 years, the person with 15 years of exposure has a higher risk. For example, up to 65% of heavily-exposed workers (like shipyard workers or asbestos insulators) may develop asbestosis or asbestos-related pleural disease. Workers with less exposure have less risk of developing asbestosis. Two other things are important to remember. The first one is that two people with the same exact amount of exposure (dose) for the same length of time (duration) will not necessarily get the same disease. One may get ill while the other remains healthy. Individuals react differently to hazardous exposures. How an individual will react is difficult to predict. Individual susceptibility plays a role in determining who develops asbestos-related disease. The other thing to remember is that if you develop an asbestos-related disease, it will probably not develop until many years after you have first been exposed. The time from first exposure to the discovery of illness is called latency. The minimum latency period for asbestosis is 10-15 years, although often it takes 40 years from first exposure before the disease is diagnosed. The latency for cancer is usually somewhat longer, with most cancers not developing until 20-50 years after first exposure. There is no "maximum" latency or time when the risk of developing an asbestos-related disease disappears, because the fibers that can cause disease remain trapped in the lungs for life. 4. What if I Smoke Cigarettes?Smoking is a major risk factor for getting asbestos-related disease. If you smoke, your chances of getting sick are much greater. Smoking weakens the tissues in the lungs, causing the health effects from asbestos to be worse. One of the greatest risks is for lung cancer. Smoking alone causes lung cancer. Asbestos alone causes lung cancer. Taken together, asbestos and smoking are like dynamite and your chances of getting lung cancer multiply significantly. For unknown reasons, the combination of smoking and asbestos create a risk of cancer much higher than just adding the risks together. Individuals who continue to smoke and who have previously been exposed to asbestos have a risk of developing lung cancer that is up to 100 times greater than a non-exposed, nonsmoking individual. While you can never eliminate the risk of cancer from asbestos that
has been inhaled and trapped in the lungs, you can reduce the risk from
smoking. The risk of cancer from smoking in ex-smokers drops every year
after cessation, until it approaches the risk of a nonsmoker after 10-15
years. 5. Who Gets Sick From Asbestos Exposure?Because of its occurrence in nature and its extensive use in all types of buildings and in many materials, asbestos fibers can be found in the lungs of almost all people who live in cities. It appears that the human body's defense mechanisms can tolerate some low level of environmental exposure to asbestos fibers and that health problems are usually only seen when these defense mechanisms are overwhelmed by heavy exposures normally only found in occupational settings. However, asbestos-related disease has been found in family members of asbestos workers who were exposed to asbestos brought home on a worker's clothing, shoes, hair and respirators. Some workplaces and occupations pose more risk than others because of the amount of asbestos to which you may be exposed. Workplaces and occupations with the most risk are:
If you now work with asbestos or have in the past in one of these trades, you can be screened to find out if you have any asbestos disease.
1. What is Asbestos?
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