US EPA

709731 

Book/Book Chapter 

Asbestosis among household contacts of asbestos factory workers 

Anderson, HA; Lilis, R; Daum, SM; Selikoff, IJ 

1979 

New York Academy of Sciences 

New York, NY 

Health hazards of asbestos exposure 

387-399 

English 

294190 

10.1111/j.1749-6632.1979.tb18741.x 

MEDLINE:294190 

Equally ubiquitous in the environment as industrial chemical wastes1 are inorganic microparticles such as asbestos. The environmental burden of asbestos pollution is a recent phenomenon which has grown with the rapid expansion of asbestos-utilizing industries.2 The health consequences of poorly controlled occupational exposures to chemicals and dusts now found in the general environment have been known in many instances for well over 100 years.3 Reports of overt disease (usually seen only with occupational exposure) among nonoccupationally exposed individuals have frequently been considered medical curiosities when they appeared in the medical literature. However, the full extent of the health risks due to nonoccupational exposure to toxic agents is not known, for it is uncommon to inquire into the neighborhood residence history or occupation and exposures of a patient’s household contacts when investigating symptoms of a disease. The effects of such exposures may be mild or subclinical manifestations which are only contributory to a current health problem and their role goes unrecognized. In 1976, we reported on a systematic investigation of one such non-occupational exposure to asbestos dust.4 The group studied consisted of household contacts of workers in an asbestos factory manufacturing amosite asbestos insulation materials between 1941 and 1954. None of those reported had personal occupational exposure to asbestos. Yet 35% had asbestos-associated radiographic abnormalities. A source of home contamination in individual exposure was postulated as resulting from dust adhering to shoes, hair, and work clothes brought home for laundering. Changerooms and company laundered coveralls were not available at this plant. We reported the identification of four pleural mesotheliomas among the family contacts of the 1,664 workers who were employed at some time by the factory. Since that time one additional pleural mesotherlioma death has occurred, raising the total mesothelioma deaths to date among the group under observation to five. This report extends the continuing clinical investigation of this cohort. 

Selikoff, IJ; Hammond, EC 

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 330 

9780897660334 

International conference on health hazards of asbestos exposure 1978 

New York, NY 

June 24-27, 1978