Taconite Miners at Higher Risk of Developing Mesothelioma

After six years, a study investigating why Minnesota's Iron Range taconite miners were at higher risks of developing deadly mesothelioma, lung cancer and heart disease unearthed few answers. Preliminary findings of the $4.9 million study showed a taconite miner's risk of developing mesothelioma increased by 3 percent every year that miner spent working in an iron ore mine. Their rate of diagnosis also was three times that of the general Minnesota population. Researchers on Monday released the final results of the taconite miners study and said they were unable to determine if the short, needle-like fibers found in the dust of crushed taconite increased the risk or if it stemmed from exposure to the longer, microscopic fibers from commercial asbestos traditionally used in the taconite mining industry. Jeffrey Mandel, University of Minnesota associate professor, epidemiologist and lead researcher on the project, explained the complexity of finding the cause to a group of miners, their families, state legislators and others. "It's really difficult to separate out the different fiber types," Mandel said. "All we can say is there is a relationship between fiber-like exposure and the mesothelioma, but we can't break it down any further than that. If you had exposure to the longer fibers, you also had exposure to the shorter ones." The University of Minnesota School of Public Health and the University of Minnesota-Duluth Natural Resources Research Institute launched the Taconite W...
Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Tags: Research & Clinical Trials Source Type: news