News Coverage
Study shows asbestos-related deaths on the rise
Published March 6, 2004
The number of Iowans dying from asbestos-related diseases in on the rise, a new study found.
At least 457 Iowans have died from diseases caused by asbestos exposure since 1979 in Iowa, according to the Environmental Working Group study, a Washington-based public interest research group.
Communities with the most asbestos deaths were industrial centers in which asbestos was used to construct buildings or manufacture products. However, many Iowans who did not work in factories faced possible asbestos exposure through products such as blow-dryers and electric blankets.
Asbestos-related diseases such as mesothelioma, a rare type of lung cancer, and asbestosis, a scarring of the lungs, have a long latency period.
Symptoms may not appear for 20 to 50 years.
Asbestos currently kills about 10,000 Americans each year, the Environmental Working Group's report said. That rate is increasing as more Americans exposed during the peak years of asbestos use, the 1960s and 1970s, reach old age.
"We worked with the stuff for years before they ever told us it could harm us," said Ken Cable, a sheet metal worker for three decades before he became business manager of Sheet Metal Workers Local 263 in Cedar Rapids.
Cable recalled pouring asbestos pulp as part of a process to make coal furnaces into natural gas furnaces.
"There were days when you'd come home and your clothes would just be white with it," he said. "You brought this home in your clothes at night, and your wife washed your clothes, so she was exposed to it, too."
Several Local 263 members died from asbestosis and mesothelioma. Cable said the diseases often went undiagnosed, and the cause was not known until after they were dead.
The union has since conducted health screenings for members to detect early signs of the diseases.
The U.S. Senate is expected to debate a bill that would establish a $114 billion trust fund financed primarily by industry and insurers to cover asbestos illness claims.