According to Wisconsin Professor a Worldwide Ban on Asbestos Could Prevent Millions of Cases of Mesothelioma and Other Cancers
For years, mesothelioma advocates, the World Health Organization, environmental scientists, lawyers and medical professionals have called for all governments to stop the use of asbestos and eliminate the mineral as a cause of occupational diseases. Now, a Wisconsin professor, who has been studying the health effects of asbestos for 40 years, has joined the fray of pushing for a worldwide ban on the toxic material.
Asbestos is a known carcinogen and, according to the 12th edition of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Report on Carcinogens, is shown to cause respiratory-tract cancer, lung cancer, pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma and cancer at other tissue sites. It is also responsible for asbestosis and other respiratory diseases.
Marty S. Kanarek, a University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health professor, reported last week that continued use of asbestos-containing building materials in developing countries will lead to millions of avoidable cases of cancer and an epidemic of asbestos-disease.
Mesothelioma is a cancer of the lining of the lung or abdomen caused by inhaling asbestos fibers. Most individuals who develop mesothelioma worked around asbestos and typically develop symptoms of asbestos disease 20 years to 50 years after exposure. ”It is a terrible cancer, quickly fatal, and practically impossible to treat because it is so diffuse throughout the body,” Kanarek says of mesothelioma.
In the United States, mesothelioma is blamed for 131,200 cancer deaths between 1985 and 2009 and 10 million worldwide. About 3,000 new cases of mesothelioma are diagnosed each year in the United States.
Kanarek reviewed dozens of studies of mesothelioma cases involving brake workers in the United States, miners in Africa, cement pipe factory workers in Egypt and concluded that chrysotile asbestos poses an occupational hazard of developing mesothelioma around the world.
According to an unrelated study in Respirology, the increase in asbestos use in Asian countries since 1970 is likely to trigger a surge in asbestos-related diseases, including mesothelioma and lung cancer, in the next 20 years.
New York mesothelioma lawyer Joseph W. Belluck responded to that study saying, “We believe a worldwide ban on asbestos, as called for by the World Health Organization, is the only sure way to stop the suffering and deaths caused by mesothelioma and asbestos-related disease.”
“My conclusion and the conclusion of many other environmental health scientists is that all asbestos should be banned worldwide,” said Kanarek at the conclusion of his study. “We could prevent a million or more cases of cancer. The evidence is very clear.”
Kanarek’s findings can be found in the September issue of the Annals of Epidemiology.
