asbestos

In the chemical family: Amphibole-group minerals

Asbestos is the common name for a group of fibrous silicate minerals valued for their tough, heat and fire-resistant and insulating properties. But inhaling the short, sharp fibers can lead to lung cancer, mesothelioma (cancer of the lung or abdominal lining) and asbestosis, a non-malignant, irreversible respiratory disease.

Environmental Working Group Action Fund research shows that 10,000 people are dying of asbestos-related diseases annually.

In a 2004 investigation entitled Think Again, EWG analysts calculated that because symptoms may not appear for 20 to 50 years after exposure, the number of victims of asbestos-related disease is likely to climb until 2014.

The EWG investigation unearthed documents dating back to the 1930s showing that corporate executives knew and concealed the dangers from workers making or handling asbestos-laden building materials, roofing, insulation, brake and clutch linings and hundreds more products.

A second EWG Action Fund investigation, A Slow Death in Texas, published in 2005, found that asbestos-related deaths in Texas had tripled since 1989. The report also noted that 675,000 tons of asbestos-contaminated vermiculite had been shipped to 24 locations in Texas between 1963 and 1992. The source of the vermiculite was a Montana mine operated by W.R. Grace Co., indicted in 2005 for criminal violations of the federal Clean Air Act. In a report entitled disGraceful, EWG unearthed documents showing that thousands of workers at 14 Grace insulation plants had been exposed to dangerous levels of asbestos dust.

The EWG findings helped kill federal legislation backed by the asbestos and insurance industries to limit the ability of people to sue for injuries caused by exposure to asbestos.

EWG supports federal legislation to ban asbestos. The Environmental Protection Agency banned most asbestos-based products in 1989. But two years later, the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans overruled the agency and permitted pre-1989 uses of asbestos.

Health Effects related to asbestos: Cancer

Routes of Exposure related to asbestos:

• Consumer products: cars
• Environment: industrial water pollution
• Miscellaneous: building materials, occupational
• Water

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