News Coverage
Study: 10,000 a year will die of asbestos exposure
Published March 4, 2004
An estimated 100,000 Americans will die over the next decade from diseases caused by exposure to asbestos 20 to 40 years ago when commercial use of the material was at its height, a new study said.
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The asbestos epidemic claimed the lives of 9,900 Americans in 2001, the latest year for which data is available, said the study by the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy group that researches health issues.
Mainly a disease of older men, asbestos exposure is responsible for one in every 125 deaths of men over the age of 50, the study said.
The estimates are based on a detailed analysis of government mortality records and epidemiological studies that indicate asbestos deaths are rising.
Asbestos diseases have a 20- to 50-year latency period, which means that a substantial portion of individuals exposed from the 1960s through the early 1980s are just now showing up as disease or mortality statistics, the study said.
About half the funding for the study came from the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, which represents many of the 700,000 people who have filed claims or lawsuits against asbestos manufacturers and users, and their insurance companies, for asbestos-caused diseases.
Manufacturers and insurance companies are lobbying heavily in favor of Republican-sponsored legislation before the Senate that would give industry immunity from asbestos lawsuits and set up a trust fund to compensate victims.
"The highly politicized controversy in Washington over asbestos litigation has overshadowed a quiet and directly related crisis in public health," the study said. "Ten thousand Americans die each year _ a rate approaching 30 deaths per day _ from diseases caused by asbestos."
Asbestos is the name of a group of highly fibrous minerals with separable, long, thin fibers. The fibers are heat resistant, making them useful for many industrial purposes. Because they are lighter than air and durable, microscopic asbestos fibers can get into lung tissue and remain there for decades, causing escalating irritation and ultimately resulting in disease.
Asbestos has been shown to cause four diseases _ mesothelioma, the signature asbestos cancer that is 100 percent fatal; asbestosis, an often-fatal non-cancer disease of the lungs; lung cancer; and gastrointestinal cancer.
Industry rejects asbestos as a cause of gastrointestinal cancer and has disputed the amount of lung cancer deaths attributed to asbestos. However, recent studies estimate 5 percent to 7 percent of all lung cancer deaths are attributable to asbestos exposure and federal environmental and health agencies have recognized asbestos as a cause of gastrointestinal caner.
Michael Baroody, executive vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers and chairman of the Asbestos Alliance steering committee, disagreed with the study's premise that asbestos-related deaths are increasing. He cited a study by industry consultant Bertram Price published recently in the American Journal of Epidemiology that concluded mesothelioma deaths for men peaked in the mid-1990s and then leveled off.
Richard Wiles, vice president of the Environmental Working Group, said Price's study doesn't jibe with figures the group obtained from government data banks and mortality records.
Dr. Richard Lemen, a former director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, said the report's estimate of 10,000 asbestos deaths a year currently is "probably an underestimate" because mesothelioma and asbestosis often go undetected or are misdiagnosed.
The estimate of 100,000 asbestos deaths over the next decade "is about as good as anybody can do," Lemen said. "We don't really know."
Asbestos use and exposure crested in the United States in the late 1970s when more than 3,000 consumer and industrial products contained asbestos and remained high through the early-1980s.
"What we need to be focused on, no matter what the history, is what can we now do about it that meets the needs of people who have genuinely been injured in a way that doesn't perpetuate this liability burden that has already bankrupted 70 companies and thrown tens of thousands of people out of work," Baroody said.
Industry documents uncovered in court cases show many companies knew about the risks of asbestos, some as early as the 1920s, but continued to use the material and hide the risk from its workers and the public.
Similar increases in asbestos deaths are occurring in many Western countries. Some studies estimate mesothelioma and asbestos-caused lung cancer will claim 500,000 lives throughout Europe over the next several decades.
The Environmental Protection Agency banned all use of asbestos in 1989, but manufacturers took the agency to court and the ban was overturned on the grounds that its economic consequences had not been fully considered. The administration of then-President Bush choose not to appeal the decision.
"That was the last time the EPA tried to ban anything," Wiles said. "They figured that if they couldn't ban asbestos _ a known carcinogen for which no level of exposure is safe _ what could they ban?"
On the Net: www.ewg.org