Mesothelioma

Doctors typically don't see asbestos-related lung cancer or scarring in people who have a brief, non-occupational, environmental exposure, though there is some evidence of increased incidents of Michael Gochfeld, an environmental health professor at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

He is also part of the Environmental Occupational Health Sciences Institute.

Those cases involved people who briefly worked in asbestos factories or who had long-term, second-hand exposure, such as laundering clothes of an asbestos worker who later developed the cancer, he said.

There are few studies on the health impact of asbestos exposure on nearby communities and most of them focus on communities near asbestos-producing sources, Gochfeld said.

He pointed out that it can take 10 to 40 years after any exposure before a person develops asbestos-related health problems.

Medical literature indicates that brief asbestos exposures can result in disease 20 to 40 years later, but the amount inhaled would have to be considerable, added Dr.

Stephen Levin, medical director of occupational and environmental medi...

"Dying doesn't frighten me.

How you die is what frightens me a bit,"said Mr Webb, who was diagnosed last October.

Mr Webb, a former plumber and heating engineer, said he wanted to get the message across that workers should use protective equipment to prevent them risking their health.

He said that in its day asbestos was believed to be safe and workers today (Thursday, 05 April) might find themselves inhaling substances which were currently believed to be harmless.

"I would like to make people aware of the risk and that they ought to use equipment like face masks.

If I had known I wouldn't have done the job." Talking of his illness, Mr Webb said:"I thought it was going to be lung cancer because I was a smoker and I would have accepted that because it was my fault, but this is not my fault." He found it particularly frustrating that he was now unable to do the things he had planned for his retirement.

His wife Diane, 59, is also worried that she may have inhaled dust from her husband's work clothes and that it c...

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