Study: Decades After Exposure to Asbestos Does Not Diminish Its Toxicity

The risk of developing mesothelioma cancer after exposure never leaves or subsides, regardless of how long you live, a new study shows. The broad-based study that examined eight diverse patient groups from Italy and Australia, including both occupational and secondhand exposure, concluded the toxicity of asbestos within the body never expires. There is no decrease or decline in risk, said lead author Alison Reid, Ph.D., Associate Professor at the School of Public Health, Curtin University in Western Australia. She and six others penned the study titled, "Mesothelioma Risk After 40 Years Since First Exposure to Asbestos: A Pooled Analysis." "We have always known that the risk of mesothelioma increases the longer it is since you were first exposed," Reid told Asbestos.com. "What the study has shown is that even after 45 years, there still is risk for developing the disease." The typically long latency period (20-40 years) between asbestos exposure and definitive symptoms has been well chronicled in the past, but this is the first significant study detailing the indefinite risk of developing the cancer. No One Outlives the Risk "No one survives long enough for the excess risk to disappear," the authors concluded in their analysis published in Thorax, one of the leading respiratory medical journals in the world. The study included 862 mesothelioma cases from more than 22,000 people who were exposed. It's an unsettling prospect for those who were exposed, knowing they are u...
Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Tags: Research & Clinical Trials Source Type: news