What is mesothelioma?
Mesothelioma is a cancer of the cells that make up the lining around the outside of the lungs and inside of the ribs (pleura), or around the abdominal organs (peritoneum).
What does asbestos have to do with mesothelioma?
The only known cause of mesothelioma in the United States is previous exposure to asbestos fibers . Asbestos manufacturers knew about the hazards of asbestos seventy years ago - but they kept this knowledge to themselves. The first warnings given to workers exposed to asbestos were in the mid-1960s, and they were terribly inadequate. Even today, workers are not always told they are working around asbestos and are at risk for asbestos disease.
What is asbestos?
Asbestos is the name for a group of naturally occurring silicate minerals that can be separated into fibers. The fibers are strong, durable, and resistant to heat and fire. They are also long, thin and flexible, so that they can even be woven into cloth.
Because of these qualities, asbestos has been used in thousands of consumer, industrial, maritime, automotive, scientific and building products. During the twentieth century, some 30 million tons of asbestos were used in industrial sites, homes, schools, shipyards and commercial buildings in the United States.
There are several types of asbestos fibers, of which three have been used for commercial applications:
(1) Chrysotile , or white asbestos, comes mainly from Canada, and has been very widely used in the US. It is white-gray in color and found in serpentine rock.
(2) Amosite , or brown asbestos, comes from southern Africa.
(3) Crocidolite , or blue asbestos, comes from southern Africa and Australia.
Amosite and crocidolite are called amphiboles. This term refers to the nature of their geologic formation.
Other asbestos fibers that have not been used commercially are tremolite, actinolite and anthophyllite, although they are sometimes contaminants in asbestos-containing products. It should be noted that there are non-fibrous, or non-asbestiform, variants of tremolite, anthophylite and actinolite, which do not have the adverse health consequences that result from exposure to commercial forms of asbestos.
