Known Facts on Asbestos

Available in abundance naturally beneath the surface of the earth, asbestos is a mineral fiber structured in layers of asbestos fibers. Being a mineral fiber, with an amazing structure, asbestos is endowed with excellent properties like high tensile strength, heat and fire resistance, abrasion and corrosion resistance, acid and alkali resistance, insulation, sound proofness and high durability. 

Asbestos used widely in industrial work, manufacturing buildings and products.

The properties of asbestos make it a highly popular substance to manufacture more than 3,000 asbestos products, known as asbestos containing materials (ACM), that were used extensively during the period between 1880 and 1980. In some ways, this period could be considered as the golden period for asbestos and the asbestos industry earned huge profits from asbestos.

Asbestos-related diseases were investigated by various research studies to find that asbestos was implicated in those diseases. This type of disease was given the name asbestos-related disease (ARD).The studies also determined that asbestos could cause both cancerous or malignant disease like mesothelioma, lung, ovarian and laryngeal cancer and non-cancerous or non-malignant disease like asbestosis, pleuritis and pleural plaques.

From the research studies, it was found that when microscopic asbestos fibers float in the air and people inhale or ingest these fibers, they become the cause of ARDs. This is because of the structure of asbestos fibers. When these fibers are held together loosely, asbestos is known as friable and when compactly held, asbestos is known as non-friable.

What is the ‘friability’ of asbestos? (Friable asbestos is broken up into tiny fibers that become airborne and are easily inhaled or ingested.

Non-friable asbestos can become friable with wear and tear and efflux of time.

A feature of friable asbestos is that under normal hand crushing it can be easily crumbled into powder comprising thousands of microscopic asbestos fibers, which then can float in the air and pollute the atmosphere with these microscopic fibers.

Since these fibers are microscopic and cannot be seen by the naked eye and since these fibers don’t smell or taste, people swallow or inhale these fibers without their knowledge. This then is the source of asbestos in the body that causes ARDs. Therefore, research determined that ARDs were caused by asbestos exposure, which consists of primary asbestos exposure and secondary asbestos exposure.

Asbestos Exposure Risks to People

Asbestos exposure and diseases is all too common for industrial workers and their families.

Typically, people who work with asbestos or ACMs in their occupational settings are said to be at risk of primary asbestos exposure. In this category are people who work in mining activities and construction activities, such as flooring installers, roofing tiles and sidings installers, masons, insulation technicians, plumbers and all those who undertake repairs and maintenance of buildings. 

Similarly, people working on ships, naval yards, shipyards and dockyards are also subject to high risk of primary asbestos exposure. Military personnel are especially at high risk of primary asbestos exposure because they are involved with repairs and maintenance of ships, which involve lots of ACMs.These categories can also include thousands of women who may be involved in these kinds of occupations.

These people who are subject to primary asbestos exposure also become sources of secondary asbestos exposure. This happens because the workers return to their homes after work and carry with them asbestos fibers and dust into the homes and vehicles via their person, clothes, footwear, tools, equipment and documents.Thus, family members are now subject to secondary asbestos exposure. These can include spouses and children and any other members who live with such families.

Secondary asbestos exposure

Spouses, children and other family or household members of industrial workers who worked prior to the mid-1980s (when many uses of asbestos were banned.)

Those who wash the asbestos-tainted  work clothes and anyone cleaning the homes and office buildings are all subject to secondary asbestos exposure. 

Secondary or secondhand asbestos exposure affects women and children more because they have the highest chance of being exposed to asbestos fibers, being at home most of the time when compared to the breadwinner.

Even a minor or one-time exposure to asbestos could be enough to cause ARDs. 

Secondary asbestos exposure can be expressed in different forms. The alternative forms of expressions could include family exposure, domestic exposure, household exposure and para-occupational asbestos exposure.

Women and Asbestos Disease

The foregoing has put the ill effects of asbestos exposure in perspective and the effect it has on women on the risks of being subjected to secondary asbestos exposure. These risks result in women acquiring malignant mesothelioma, a deadly form of cancer, which has poor prognosis for women. These risks are backed by data from studies conducted by various entities.

Mesothelioma in women is more common as pleural mesothelioma, a lethal form of cancer of the lining of the lungs. In women, survival rates of pleural mesothelioma arehigher than in men.

2021 CDC Report on Asbestos Disease Being Underreported in Women

According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report entitled ‘Malignant Mesothelioma Mortality in Women — United States, 1999–2020,’annual mesothelioma deaths in respect of women increased to 614 in 2020 from 489 in 1999. Significantly, 129 homemakers diedin 2020 accounting for 22.8% of deaths, followed by health care and social assistance industry, with 89 deaths, accounting for 15.7% of deaths.

While the average time period from a first asbestos exposure until death ranged from 13 to 70 years, the median for women was 32 years.

When comparison between men and women is made, it found 85% of mesotheliomas in men were attributed to asbestos exposure at work, while it was 23% for women.In another study, women in homes who had a person working in an occupation involving working with asbestos increased their risk for mesothelioma by 10 times when compared to women who had no one working in any occupations involving asbestos. 

Military Spouses and Asbestos Disease

While the proportion of women in the military is low when compared to men, both men and women run the same risk of acquiring ARDs when they work in asbestos-related occupations within the military. This is because men and women are both subject to primary asbestos exposure. 

The spouses of military personnel who are not employed by the military but stay in the same military homes with the military personnel are subject to secondary asbestos exposure. 

Within the military, those working on naval ships probably are at higher risk than in other asbestos-related military occupations. This is because naval workmen work in confined spaces, with poor ventilation and less frequent cleaning of the workplaces. Therefore, spouses of such workers have a higher risk of acquiring ARDs than military workers in non-naval occupations. 

Spouses, especially women living in housing provided by the military are perhaps subject to more secondary asbestos exposure because the housescould have been built before the 1980s, which almost always had ACMs in many places throughout the homes. 

CDC: Women’s Asbestos Disease is Underreported, and Still Increased

Mesothelioma is not common, but hasn’t disappeared – especially in women.

Mesothelioma caused by asbestos is rare when compared to other cancers. Therefore, many doctors, including specialists can mistake this cancer for something else.

This is especially true for women because mesothelioma is more common in men and physicians can rule out mesothelioma in women, without conducting further tests. Often physicians work with vague symptoms and could, therefore, pass it off as a common treatable disease. Doctors have been known to wrongly diagnose pleural mesothelioma as pneumonia, flu, asthma or bronchitis. Similarly, peritoneal mesothelioma can be passed off as food intolerances and allergies, menstrual issues or irritable bowel syndrome.

Similarly, other ARDs could also be misreported because the symptoms in some cases could be misdiagnosed as other respiratory disease.

These misdiagnoses could result in underreporting of ARDs. Despite this kind of misdiagnosis, the women’s ARDs have risen. 

Conclusion on Women and Asbestos Diseases Like Mesothelioma

Women who may have been exposed to industrial work clothes prior to the mid-1980s should strongly consider getting an X-ray to look for asbestos scarring.

The CDC report is relatively new, and should ring alarm bells for women and they should express their apprehensions to the healthcare professionals. This means that women should periodically get a health checkup. 

If women have loved ones working with asbestos-related professions, then they should be doubly careful, as they can run the risk of acquiring ARDs through secondary asbestos exposure. In fact, if such women launder the work clothes of their loved one, they should know that they run the same risk as those subject to primary asbestos exposure.

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https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/asbestos/atsdr_asbestos_work.html

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rPAk4EzKi0kFN6WNr27gCcPtSSTaTKJhBVjtbKcYacQ/edit

https://www.asbestos.com/mesothelioma/women/