Deaths from Asbestos Exposure Surge in U.S. - Report

[TacticalPeek]

Deaths from Asbestos Exposure Surge in U.S. - Report
Thu Jul 22, 2004 03:31 PM ET


By Paul Simao

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Deaths from asbestos exposure have surged in the United States and are set to keep rising in the next decade as more workers succumb to the lung disease caused by the industrial mineral, federal health experts warned on Thursday.

The number of Americans who died of asbestosis, which is caused by inhalation of asbestos particles, jumped to 1,493 in 2000 from 77 in 1968, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The incurable disease, marked by shortness of breath and persistent cough and linked to a higher risk of cancer, is now a bigger killer than silicosis and black lung and the deadliest of all work-related respiratory illnesses.

The Atlanta-based CDC warned that the death toll would likely continue rising because of the lag -- often as much as 45 years -- between initial exposure to asbestos fibers and death.


http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=5748672

[daleo]

1. Didn't Cheney...Halliburton...

Well, you know.

[stickdog]

2. Thank God they got all the tons of asbestos out of the WTC so safely!

[seemslikeadream]

3. Plane Crashes, WR Grace, Deadly Asbestos, WTC Collapse & Wellstone

http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=5471&forum=DCForumID43


Murray's co-sponsor, Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., died in October in a plane crash.

W.R. Grace says the insulation is safe, and wrote a letter to the EPA in April insisting that no health warnings are necessary.

In addition to its use in insulation, the brownish-pink vermiculite was contained in garden products, cement mixtures and many other products. One of those products was as fireproofing in ceiling tiles used widely in schools and federal office buildings. Helping manufacture those tiles as a side job while in college likely gave Brian Harvey of Marysville mesothelioma, a disease caused only by exposure to asbestos.

Harvey criticized the Bush administration's decision to pull the public health warning. "I have a real problem with that," Harvey said. "That I consider unforgivable."

"At the top levels of the Bush administration, they are maintaining this cloak of secrecy that I can't imagine the people who I've worked with at the EPA are very happy about," Murray said. "Hopefully, the public will start crying out for Congress and the administration to do something about this."


From: http://www.labournet.net/world/0201/asbest1.html

and I wish I could find this thread in GD but all links are broke to it.

[stickdog]

4. Yeah, that GD discussion was something special ...