Health impact of asbestos

Asbestos warning label.
Figure A shows the location of the lungs, airways, pleura, and diaphragm in the body. Figure B shows lungs with asbestos-related diseases, including pleural plaque, lung cancer, asbestosis, plaque on the diaphragm, and mesothelioma.
Left-sided mesothelioma (seen on the right of the picture): chest CT

All types of asbestos fibers are known to cause serious health hazards in humans.[1][2][3] The most common diseases associated with chronic exposure to asbestos are asbestosis and mesothelioma.[4]

Amosite and crocidolite are considered the most hazardous asbestos fiber types;[5] however, chrysotile asbestos has also produced tumors in animals and is a recognized cause of asbestosis and malignant mesothelioma in humans,[6] and mesothelioma has been observed in people who were occupationally exposed to chrysotile, family members of the occupationally exposed, and residents who lived close to asbestos factories and mines.[7]

During the 1980s and again in the 1990s it was suggested at times that the process of making asbestos cement could "neutralize" the asbestos, either via chemical processes or by causing cement to attach to the fibers and changing their physical size; subsequent studies showed that this was untrue, and that decades-old asbestos cement, when broken, releases asbestos fibers identical to those found in nature, with no detectable alteration.[8]

  1. ^ Asbestos: elimination of asbestos-related diseases. World Health Organization. July 2014
  2. ^ Straif, K; Benbrahim-Tallaa, L; Baan, R; Grosse, Y; Secretan, B; El Ghissassi, F; Bouvard, V; Guha, N; Freeman, C; Galichet, L; Cogliano, V; WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer Monograph Working Group (2009). "A review of human carcinogens—Part C: Metals, arsenic, dusts, and fibres" (PDF). The Lancet. Oncology. 10 (5): 453–4. doi:10.1016/S1470-2045(09)70134-2. PMID 19418618.
  3. ^ Collegium Razmzzini 2010 Statement on Asbestos. collegiumramazzini.org
  4. ^ ATSDR – Asbestos – Health Effects. (1 April 2008). ATSDR Home. Retrieved 24 January 2011
  5. ^ "Types of Asbestos - Chyrsotile, Actinolite, Tremolite & More".
  6. ^ Kanarek, M. S. (2011). "Mesothelioma from Chrysotile Asbestos: Update". Annals of Epidemiology. 21 (9): 688–97. doi:10.1016/j.annepidem.2011.05.010. PMID 21820631.
  7. ^ Marbbn, C.A. (2009). "Asbestos Risk Assessment". The Journal of Undergraduate Biological Studies: 12–24.
  8. ^ Investigation of the chrysotile fibres in an asbestos cement sample (2006) - HSL/2007/11 Archived 2019-02-14 at the Wayback Machine, p.26 onward