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A new Slovenian public health study of people living near an asbestos manufacturing village found the incidence of malignant mesothelioma is 8.5 times higher among nearby residents than among the country’s population as a whole. Malignant mesothelioma is an incurable cancer of the lining of the lung or abdomen, associated with asbestos exposure.

For more than 70 years, the picturesque alpine valley of Nova Gorica, Slovenia, part of the former Yugoslovia, was the base of operations of a Salonit Anhovo factory that produced asbestos cement pipes and sheets. The factory consumed nearly 90 percent of all asbestos used in Slovenia and had a workforce of 2,600 at its peak in 1980. Approximately 98 percent of the asbestos the factory used was chrysotile, while a small percentage was amphiboles.

While still picturesque, the alpine valley has acquired the nickname “asbestos valley” today. Its population is struggling with an epidemic of asbestos-related disease that is expected to keep increasing for another 10 to 15 years..

The 2010 study by the Institute of Public Health of Ljubljana, Slovenia traced malignant mesothelioma among the 50,000 residents of Nova Gorica and nearby Tomlin using medical records. The first two cases of asbestosis, a chronic scarring of the lung from breathing asbestos, in the Salonit Anhovo factory were confirmed in 1981, which marked the start of the ongoing epidemic, researchers said.

The study found that from 1983 to 2005, a disproportionately high 28 percent of all mesothelioma cases in Slovenia were diagnosed in the studied population, which accounts for only 2.5 percent of the country’s total 1.94 million population. Most of the people who acquired the disease worked in the factory, or lived in the surrounding area, the study said.

The rate of mesothelioma for all of Slovenia was 21.4 cases were 100,000 population, the study said. The rate in Nova Gorica, which includes the Anhovo village, was 170.2 cases per 100,000. In the nearby Tomlin area, the incidence was 60.9 per 100,000.

The study said the epidemic of mesothelioma and asbestosis, a chronic scarring of the lung, in the area, were associated with manufacturing of asbestos at a local factory from 1922 to 1996. Because of problems caused by asbestos, the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Slovenia proposed a decree prohibiting and restricting production, trade and use of asbestos and asbestos products. The decree was passed in 1998, and a ban on asbestos has been fully enforced since January 2003.

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