Kronenberg, RS; Levin, JL; Dodson, RF; Garcia, JGN; Griffith, DE
Asbestos is a well-known health hazard. The principal diseases related to asbestos exposure are a variety of nonmalignant pleural disorders including pleural effusion, pleural plaques, and pleural fibrosis, as well as asbestosis, mesothelioma, and cancer of the lung, larynx, and gastrointestinal tract. Initially, most cases of asbestos-related disease were seen in miners, millers, and persons employed in the manufacture of asbestos products. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, asbestos-related disease was reported in end-product users such as insulators, shipyard workers, and railroad worker. More recently, workers who did not directly use asbestos have been found to be at risk. In most instances this “third wave” of asbestos disease has involved persons who, while not directly using asbestos themselves, were in situations where their exposure to asbestos was fairly evident. This includes workers in the general construction trades, such as carpenters and sheet-metal workers, and office workers exposed to deteriorating asbestos material. Outside of the petrochemical industry, where there was extensive use of asbestos in pipe insulation, few, if any, reports of asbestos-related disease exist in workers employed in general industry. The purpose of this report is to present preliminary observations on the prevalence of asbestos-related disease in workers at two industrial sites not generally associated with asbestos exposure -- a glass bottle-manufacturing plant and a steel mill.