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Asbestos Textile Workers Face Increased Chance of Cancer, Study Says

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

By Wade Rawlins
Workers in North Carolina textiles mills that used asbestos in manufacturing are at higher risk of lung cancer and other serious illnesses, according to a new study in an international journal on environmental and workplace health. The study, by researchers at Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Nevada, in the current issue of Occupational and Environmental Medicine offers further evidence that exposure to chrysotile asbestos in textile manufacturing is associated with an increased risk of lung cancer, mesothelioma and asbestosis.

Researchers tracked 5,770 workers who worked at least one day in one of four North Carolina textile plants that produced asbestos products between 1950 and 1973. They found that the workers’ mortality rate from all causes as well lung cancer and other cancers was significantly higher than expected compared to the national population. They also found that the risk of lung cancer and asbestosis increased in proportion to the estimated exposure to asbestos fibers.

Asbestos is the name of a group of fibrous minerals with long thin fibers. It is a known human carcinogen, according to the World Health Organization, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, linked to lung cancer, mesothelioma and other respiratory illnesses. Its use is now highly regulated. But until the 1970s, asbestos was widely used in manufacturing, particularly for building materials, because of its properties of heat resistance and durability.

The textile plants, which were located in Charlotte, Davidson and Marshville, converted raw asbestos, imported primarily from Canada, and cotton fibers into yarn and woven materials.

There are two general types of asbestos: amphibole and chrysotile asbestos. And there is some debate among scientists about the relative toxicity of the different forms. Some studies have suggested that amphibole fibers stay in the lungs longer and may be more toxic to humans.

The researchers focused on chrysotile asbestos, which was used in these textile mills to produce yarn and other woven materials. (That’s the same form of asbestos fibers detected in samples taken from the World Trade Center site after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11.)

The researchers findings challenge studies that suggest that chrysotile asbestos is safe for use or does not cause mesothelioma.

The researchers reported that mortality rates for lung cancer, and mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs, were all significantly higher than expected. For lung cancer, the mortality rate increased with the length of employment, they said.

The researchers estimated textile workers exposure to asbestos fibers using work records and about 3,600 industrial hygiene measurements taken in the plants by North Carolina health department investigators between 1935 and 1986. That helped them estimate fiber concentrations in the air.

One limitation the researchers faced was that mesothelioma was not coded separately as a cause of death by the International Classification of Diseases until 1999. So textile workers who died before that wouldn’t have had that listed as a cause of death. The researchers said the mortality rates for mesothelioma and pleural cancer combined was substantially greater than expected, though imprecise because of the small number coded that way.

Exposure to asbestos usually occurs by breathing air contaminated with microscopic asbestos fibers such as in workplaces that use asbestos. The adverse health effects of the exposure often do not show up for 20 to 30 years.

In 1998, federal environmental regulators banned all new uses of asbestos; established used are still allowed. EPA regulates the release of asbestos from factories and during building demolition or renovation to prevent asbestos from getting into the environment. EPA established regulations that require school systems to inspect for damaged asbestos and to eliminate or reduce the exposure by sealing the asbestos or removing it.

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posted by Wade Rawlins at 7:11 PM
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