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Asbestos has been a leading concern in public health for decades. It’s well established that asbestos fibers when inhaled cause serious and often fatal respiratory diseases including lung cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs or abdomen. Still questions and areas of scientific uncertainty remain about asbestos and similar fibers.

As part of a reappraisal of standards to protect workers from asbestos, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the lead federal agency for prevention of worker illness and injury, is seeking public comment on a new draft report that outlines current scientific understanding of asbestos. The report offers a research roadmap for exploring unanswered questions about asbestos and other elongated mineral fibers. The research findings would build a scientific foundation for future environmental and occupational health policy decisions.

“Asbestos has been a highly visible issue in public health for over three decades and abundant information is in the scientific literature,” the draft document states. “However, in part because of the complexity in the mineralogy, the scientific literature has various inconsistencies and inconclusive evidence which have led to uncertainties in identifying and applying the term asbestos for health and regulatory purposes.”

Since federal regulatory agencies developed workplace standards for exposure to airborne asbestos fibers in the 1970s because of its toxicity, the use of asbestos in the U.S. has declined substantially. Mining of asbestos in the U.S. ceased in 2002. Yet, asbestos products are still in wide use and new products are being manufactured and imported in the U.S.

The regulatory standards apply to six commercially used asbestos minerals— chrysotile, crocidolite, amosite, actinolite asbestos, anthophyllite asbestos and tremolite asbestos. In 1990, to protect workers, NIOSH broadened its definition of airborne asbestos fibers to include in addition to the six types of asbestos, other elongated mineral particles from nonasbestiform minerals. That was based on research in long-term animal studies.

The research roadmap proposes further research to clarify understanding of what determines the toxicity of asbestos and elongated mineral particles such as size or dimensions of the fiber. Studies of workers at talc mines in upstate New York and taconite mines in Minnesota are examples of potentially valuable followup research on the toxicity of non-asbestos elongated mineral particles, the report notes.

The draft document was developed by NIOSH scientists and engineers with professional experience in areas related to asbestos and elongated mineral fibers. Public comments are invited until April 16, 2010.

Read the Draft Report

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