Asbestos Epidemic a Persistent Public Health Menace

WASHINGTON, DC, March 5, 2004 (ENS) - Diseases caused by asbestos claim the lives of at least 27 Americans every day, nearly the number that are slain in firearms assaults, a new review of government data by an environmental research group has found.

Some 9,907 Americans die each year from cancers and other illnesses caused by asbestos, according to the detailed analysis of government mortality records and epidemiological studies by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) Action Fund released on Thursday.

A patient with asbestos related disease performs a lung test (Photo courtesy CDC)

For the first time, the EWG study "Asbestos: Think Again," breaks out the death toll in each state and county nationwide, showing that Los Angeles County has more asbestos-related deaths than anywhere else in the country.

EWG's Senior Vice President Richard Wiles, the study's lead author, says, "We took a new look at an old subject and found that asbestos is not an economic issue but a public health crisis - one that has yet to reach its peak."

Wiles says that EWG's focus on asbestos originated six years ago in an EWG examination of data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on the major environmental exposure risks affecting American workers. Asbestos exposure and risk topped the list.

More information was assembled through the EWG's Chemical Industry Archives project, which Wiles wrote, "enabled us to analyze and post online the damning internal documents from the asbestos industry and its insurers, and to examine the numerous flaws of the Toxic Substances Control Act."

"Of the dozens of case histories of industrial pollution that EWG has developed through the Archives over the past five years," wrote Wiles, "none shocked or angered us more than the story of cold, calculating indifference to human life that emerges from the memos, correspondence and studies of the asbestos industries and their insurance companies."

The study reports that 30 million pounds of asbestos are still used in the United States each year and each year more than one million workers are exposed to it.

Asbestos exposure usually occurs by breathing contaminated air in workplaces that make or use asbestos. Asbestos is also found in the air of buildings containing asbestos that are being torn down or renovated.

Tremolite asbestos (Photo courtesy ATSDR)

Left in place they are relatively harmless, but once airborne asbestos fibers damage the lungs and the membrane that surrounds the lungs. Drinking water may contain asbestos from natural sources or from cement pipes that contain asbestos. Cigarette smoke and asbestos together significantly increase the chances of getting lung cancer, studies have established.

For the first time, the EWG Action Fund's interactive website shows Americans how close they live to a site where asbestos was shipped or processed. The study lists sites nationwide where asbestos cleanup is most critical and finds that more than 100,000 people live within half a mile of a site.

Exposure to asbestos has created a flood of litigation targeting some 8,400 defendant companies in federal and state courts. The U.S. Supreme Court has called these "an elephantine mass" of cases that "defies customary judicial administration and calls for national legislation."

These comments are quoted in a bill currently before the U.S. Senate. The Asbestos Claims Criteria and Compensation Act of 2003 (S.413) is a Republican proposal to set up a special fund the bill's proponents claim will take care of all asbestos victims.

Proposed by Sen Don Nickles of Oklahoma and co-sponsored by fellow Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, and Missouri Senator Jim Talent, the bill's stated purpose is to "conserve the scarce resources of the defendants, and marshal assets in bankruptcy, to allow compensation of cancer victims and others who are physically harmed by exposure to asbestos while securing the right to similar compensation for those who may suffer physical harm in the future."

But, says EWG, because asbestos-related diseases take up to 50 years to show up, even if everyone who is sick today was helped, the fund would deny justice to hundreds of thousands who have yet to become ill. EWG Action Fund researchers recommend that the federal government ban asbestos immediately and look for a policy solution that will care for all victims - now and in the future.

EWG Action Fund researchers found that less than two percent of workers exposed to asbestos have asked for help paying medical bills, and that companies who claim to have been driven bankrupt by asbestos suits tell shareholders their bottom lines have not suffered.

Vermiculite insulation containing asbestos in an attic (Photo courtesy EPA)

Documents published on the EWG website as part of "Asbestos: Think Again" include an original 1988 document from the Manville Trust litigation which states, "...show corporate knowledge of the dangers associated with asbestos dating back to 1934. In addition, the plaintiff's bar will probably take the position - not unreasonably - that the documents are evidence of a corporate conspiracy to prevent asbestos workers learning that their exposure to asbestos could kill them."

In 1989, EPA banned all new uses of asbestos, but uses established before this date are still allowed. The EPA passed regulations that require school systems to inspect for damaged asbestos and to eliminate or reduce the exposure by removing the asbestos or by covering it up. The agency regulates the release of asbestos from factories and during building demolition or renovation to prevent asbestos from getting into the environment.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has set limits on the amount of asbestos allowed per cubic meter of workplace air for eight hour shifts and 40 hour work weeks.

The EWG study lists dozens of widely used consumer products that still contain asbestos, most used in construction.

The include: acoustical plaster, adhesives, asphalt floor tile, base flashing, blown-in insulation, boiler insulation, breaching insulation, caulking/putties, ceiling tiles and lay-in panels, cement pipes, siding, and wallboard, chalkboards, construction adhesives used to glue down floor tile, carpet, ceiling tile, cooling towers, decorative plaster, ductwork, flexible fabric connections, electric wiring insulation, electrical cloth, electrical panel partitions, elevator brake shoes and equipment panels, fire blankets, curtains and doors, fireproofing materials, flooring backing, heating and electrical ducts, high temperature gaskets, HVAC duct insulation, joint compounds, laboratory gloves, hoods and table tops, packing materials, pipe insulation, roofing felt and shingles, spackling compounds, spray-applied insulation, thermal taping compounds, textured paints and coatings, thermal paper products, vermiculite insulation, vinyl floor tile, vinyl sheet flooring, vinyl wall coverings, and wallboard.

View all of the data and documents in "Asbestos: Think Again" online at: http://www.ewg.org/reports/asbestos/

The Environmental Protection Agency website on asbestos is at: http://www.epa.gov/asbestos/

The Centers for Disease Control website on asbestos is at: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/asbestos/asbestos_risks.asp