Understanding the risks of indoor air polluted with asbestos fibers and what to do about it.

The Health Impacts of Asbestos

Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral that was mined during the 19^° and 20^° century and used in around 3,000 products that had asbestos containing materials (ACM).

After enjoying a dream run, various health studies determined that exposure to asbestos causes what are known as asbestos-related diseases (ARD).

The way asbestos plays a role in the health of people exposed to asbestos is through inhalation or swallowing of asbestos fibers and dust. These fibers are microscopic in nature, invisible to the naked eye.

Si es posible que haya estado expuesto al asbesto, hable con su proveedor de atención médica sobre pruebas y exámenes para ayudar a detectar la presencia de fibras de enfermedades relacionadas con el asbesto.

Why asbestos is bad for your health

Fibrous in nature, asbestos is made up of millions of flexible fibers and when these are damaged or disturbed, they float in the air and become the source of asbestos exposure.

Thus, when people are in the presence of asbestos fibers and dust floating in the air in an enclosed place like a home or a workplace, they run the risk of inhaling these fibers or swallowing them. Since they are so tiny (microscopic), people do not usually know that they have inhaled asbestos fibers or dust.

La American Lung Association señala que existe el riesgo de que, una vez inhaladas, algunas fibras de asbesto nunca salgan del cuerpo.¹

Estas fibras de asbesto lodge themselves in the lungs, residing there for a long time.

Their stay in the lungs causes irritation and scarring. Scar tissue is inflexible and can lead to problems in the respiratory system, which in turn causes health issues like emphysema, asthma, and asbestosis, pleural effusions, pleural plaques, pleuritis, diffuse pleural thickening, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), all non-cancerous diseases. The scarring can also lead to cancers, such as mesothelioma, a deadly form of cancer in the lining of the lungs or abdomen. There are otros tipos de cáncer too that affect other organs of the body like the lungs, ovaries and larynx.

Indoor Asbestos Pollution

Typically, people staying in a home or working in an occupational setting are exposed to asbestos fibers found in enclosed spaces like garages, laundry rooms, and family vehicles.

These people run the risk of exposure to asbestos and consequently are potentially open to risk of asbestos related diseases.

Asbestos containing materials may also be found in many older products and buildings.

As mentioned earlier, ACMs were used in thousands of products, including many products used in the construction industry, such as cement, plaster, floor tiles, roofing, piping, false ceilings, soundproof materials, plasterboards, and fireproofing. As such, homes built up to the 1980s contain numerous ACM products, offering scope for asbestos exposure.

Asbestos has no smell or taste and you may not know you’re breathing or swallowing it.

One way to detect asbestos could be by its color. Asbestos can come in colors, such as brown, blue, dark green, yellow and white. But asbestos also does not have a distinct smell or taste, making it a substance that is very difficult to detect.

In its natural form, asbestos will take on the smell of the products that it finally goes into. For instance, floor tiles, building materials and construction materials use ACMs in them and it is not easy to say whether they contain asbestos. The only way to find out is to do destructive testing. That means breaking a sample from the product and having it tested for asbestos fibers.

Prior to 1982, nearly every building was constructed with an asbestos-containing material of some kind.

One way of getting a good idea if a home or an office building has ACMs in them is to check the year of construction. For instance, buildings or homes built after the partial ban on asbestos was imposed in 1989 in the US would perhaps have no asbestos in them. If a building or a home is built before 1989 and these structures are still inhabited even now, then it is bound to have ACMs in them.

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Asbestos Exposure in Homes and Workplaces

As described above, any asbestos fibers and dust inside a home or workplace is a source of asbestos exposure posing risk of contracting asbestos related diseases. Therefore, it is essential that the air people breathe in homes and workplace is rid of asbestos. There are a few important steps to doing so:

Determine if the premises is likely to contain asbestos based on its age.

The first is to determine if the place contains ACMs. If so, then people can check if the products with ACMs in them are damaged or disturbed. If not, then it is reasonable to assume that the air is free of asbestos fibers or dust.

People must check for damages to these products, such as floor tiles, false ceilings, plaster on walls, piping, and other products periodically to eliminate danger from them.

Look for damaged products containing asbestos

The second way arises if people find damaged ACM products. This is when it can be dangerous if steps are not taken to rid the air of asbestos.

The first thing to know is that the government has charged some federal agencies like the Agencia de Protección Ambiental (EPA) to oversee the use of asbestos in public places and the removal of asbestos according to norms set by it.

EPA Asbestos-Related Laws and EPA Asbestos Regulations govern the removal of asbestos in the air. Specifically, the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA) pertains to schools so that the school children do not face any risk from asbestos exposure.

It is advisable to engage the services of an EPA approved asbestos removal expert to rid your place of asbestos. This is important because there are specific tests to be done to test the quality of air, which can only be done by certified experts.

How to Determine if Asbestos is in the Air?

Determining conclusively if there is asbestos floating in the air requires an asbestos air test. The government wants it to be done in a special way and has issued guidelines for the same. It also wants the test to be done by an independent licensed asbestos assessor.

If the air is found free of asbestos, the assessor would issue a clearance certificate that certifies that the air is free of asbestos. This certificate would be useful when people want to sell their property. The certificate confirms for the buyer that the premises tested negative for asbestos. It also offers some legal protection for sellers, who can show they did due diligence to determine if there was asbestos present before marketing the property.

The Asbestos Air Test

El prueba de asbesto en el aire is a systematic assessment of dangers posed by asbestos in the air. The assessor would make a visual inspection of the place and determine if there is leakage of asbestos into the air. If the assessor finds no evidence it is possible that no test would be recommend.

However, if the assessor finds evidence of asbestos leakage, the test would involve the use of a special filter and a sampling pump to draw samples of air from various areas within the place.

Asbestos fibers can be microscopic, and often an electron microscope is needed to see them.

Since the fibers are microscopic, they can be seen through a microscope, which is done by qualified and authorized assessors who use special microscopes, such as electron microscopes to test the levels of asbestos in the air.

There are some tests that can be evaluated only in a specialized lab meant for the purpose. Two methods commonly used are Phase Contrast Microscopy (PCM) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM).

These experts can interpret the test results as per settled norms to assess if the areas tested have dangerous levels of asbestos in the air.

Cost of Asbestos Testing

Because of the specialized nature of testing, the costs of testing are determined by the complexity of the tests involved.

The cost of survey and asbestos inspection could range from $150 to $900
The cost of dust sample test could be between $150 and $200
The cost of physical sample test could vary from $300 to $900
The cost of asbestos air test could range from $400 to $2000 depending on the number of areas to be tested

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Asbestos and Indoor Air Pollution

The importance of indoor asbestos air pollution cannot be ignored by people, as constant exposure to asbestos can lead to asbestos related diseases, which could include cancers like cáncer de pulmón y mesotelioma.

From 1999 to 2017, the EWG Action Fund/Asbestos Nation has estimated that 236,981 to 277,654 Americans died from asbestos exposure, with 12,000 to 15,000 Americans dying every year from asbestos related diseases even now.

Although asbestos is highly regulated and even banned in 69 countries, so many deaths occur because of two phenomena in respect of asbestos. One is the latency phenomenon, which is the appearance of an ARD even 50 years after exposure. The second is the dose-response phenomenon, which means the higher the exposure to asbestos the higher is the risk of acquiring an ARD.

As mentioned earlier, buildings and homes standing today built prior to 1989 are still repositories of asbestos because products with ACMs were used extensively in these structures.

In fact, children living in such homes are likely to suffer from the latency factor and dose response to possibly show symptoms of asbestos related diseases.

Thus, clearing the homes and workplaces of any asbestos should become a priority for all people for the safety of them and their families, especially children.

AsbestosClaims.Law

Para Justinian C. Lane, obtener una indemnización por las víctimas del asbesto es algo personal.

Los abuelos de Justiniano y su padre trabajaron con asbesto en su juventud y murieron de cánceres relacionados con el asbesto en sus últimos años.

En el momento de cada una de sus muertes, nadie en la familia de Justiniano sabía que eran elegibles para presentar una demanda por asbesto y buscar una compensación de los fideicomisos de asbesto.

Debido a que nadie en la familia de Justiniano conocía sus opciones, nunca recibieron compensación alguna por la muerte de sus seres queridos.

Si cree que su lesión o la de su familiar estuvo relacionada con la exposición al asbesto, podría tener derecho a una compensación significativa.

Este es dinero que podría usar para cubrir los costos de los servicios de remoción de asbesto, pagar el tratamiento médico y proteger de manera preventiva su bienestar físico.

También hay fideicomisos de asbesto que ofrecen compensación mucho más rápida y fácilmente (sin presentar una demanda).

Si desea ayuda para presentar un reclamo, ponerse en contacto por correo electrónico a [email protected] o llámenos o envíenos un mensaje de texto al (833) 4-ASBESTOS (427-2378) o (206) 455-9190. Escucharemos su historia y le explicaremos sus opciones. Y nunca cobramos por nada a menos que reciba dinero en su bolsillo.

Además de demandas legales, discapacidad de veteranos, seguridad social y protección del empleo como compensación de trabajadores, FELA y La ley de Jones para los trabajadores marítimos, hay fideicomisos de asbesto que se han establecido para indemnizar a los perjudicados por el asbesto sin tener que presentar una demanda.

No hay riesgo ni costo para hablar con uno de nuestro personal sobre su litigio de asbesto. No hay cargos a menos que reciba dinero.

Si tiene preguntas o inquietudes adicionales relacionadas con el asbesto, visite nuestro sitio web y página de YouTube para ver videos, infografías y respuestas a sus preguntas sobre el asbesto, incluida la salud y la seguridad, prueba de asbesto, la eliminación del asbesto de su hogar y edificio, y información legal sobre la compensación por lesiones de asbesto.

Presentamos la base de datos de información sobre asbesto más grande del planeta.

W.A.R.D., que significa Worldwide Asbestos Research Database, ayuda a los clientes a reducir cuándo y dónde pueden haber estado expuestos, así como qué productos aún pueden contener asbesto.WARD también ayudará a indicar los tipos de compensación ya cuánto puede tener derecho una persona.