Health Effects Of Asbestos

Asbestosis is not a cancer. It is a chronic and progressive lung disease caused by inhaling asbestos fibres usually over a long period of time though in some cases the exposure to Asbestos has been brief.

It may take 5 to 20 years before symptoms develop. The accumulated, inhaled asbestos fibres produce scarring (fibrosis) of the lung. The lung develops a ‘honeycomb' appearance. The scar tissue, or ‘fibrosis', is hard and inflexible. This makes the lungs stiffen and stops them working properly.

Just after the turn of the century, the first wave of asbestos diseases and deaths occurred in the asbestos mining industry. The second wave attacked workers in the asbestos manufacturing industry. The third wave affected former building and construction workers and continues to do so. Now, due to decaying asbestos products the fourth wave of asbestos diseases, more subtle and insidious, is stalking a wide range of Australians at work, at school and in the home. The consequence of the fifth wave is still yet to come (workers from asbestos removal industry and consequence of uncontrolled-unsafe removal of asbestos cement products).

There has been concern for many years that young persons may be more susceptible to damage by hazardous asbestos fibres. The concern about exposure at an early age is particularly relevant in the case of carcinogens as critical organs may be susceptible to cell damage when they are still growing. Fortunately there is no evidence to date that asbestos has such an effect.

However, if children are exposed to asbestos at an early age, their long life expectancy increases the probability that they may live long enough to develop long latent period cancers such as asbestos-induced lung cancer and mesothelioma. As one eminent doctor commented at the turn of the 20th century in England, when asked if all girls exposed to asbestos in a yarn spinning factory would develop asbestosis, he replied, "Yes, if they live long enough".

The problem of chronic exposure of children to small quantities of airborne asbestos fibres was high on the agenda at the Third Wave conference (in New York). One paper at the conference told of asbestos fibres being found at autopsy in the lung tissue of a full-term stillborn infant that had never drawn an independent breath.

Asbestos diseases are on the incline and are not expected to peak for quite a number of years. The age of people contracting asbestos diseases is getting younger as people are now renovating there own homes. There is a mass of information can be obtained about asbestos and its related diseases on the internet.