The Danger of Asbestos for health

The Danger of Asbestos for health personneltoday.com

The Danger of Asbestos for health

Overview

What is asbestos?

Asbestos is one name given to a group of natural minerals that are resistant to heat and corrosion. Asbestos has been used in products, such as insulation for pipes (eg steam lines), floor tiles, building materials, and brakes as well as in vehicle couplings. Asbestos includes chrysotile, amosite, crocidolite, tremolite, anthophyllite, actinolite and one of these ingredients that have been chemically treated or altered. Heavy exposure tends to occur in the construction and repair industry, especially during the transfer of asbestos material due to renovation, repair, or demolition. Workers also tend to be exposed during manufacturing of asbestos products (such as textiles, friction products, insulation, and other building materials) and during automotive brake and clutch repair work.

What are the dangers of asbestos?

Asbestos is recognized as a health hazard and also for its use is now highly regulated by OSHA and EPA. Asbestos fibers associated with health risks are too small to be seen with the naked eye. Respiratory asbestos fibers can cause tissue buildup such as scars in the lungs called asbestosis which will result in loss of lung function that often develops defects and death. Asbestos also causes lung cancer and other diseases such as pleural mesothelioma which is a fatal malignant tumor in the membrane lining the lung or stomach cavity. Epidemiological evidence increasingly shows that all types of asbestos fibers, including the most commonly used form of asbestos, chrysotile, cause mesothelioma in humans.

The danger of asbestos

Asbestos has been used in buildings and is also suitable for many workplaces in the UK. Large numbers have been deleted in recent years, but there is still a lot left. However, asbestos is only dangerous if disturbed - if managed and can also be controlled safely, asbestos does not pose a health hazard.

The law does not require you to remove asbestos, but requires you to manage it. Practically, this means you have to ask yourself a few questions before the maintenance work is done:

Have we surveyed our place to identify asbestos-containing material?

Do we have pictures or records that clearly show where asbestos is and under what conditions?

After that, you need to think about doing repairs / sealing if necessary, marking them, and thinking about how you will handle future maintenance tasks that might interfere with that.

Important things to remember

Do not remove asbestos unnecessarily, it may be more practical to leave it in place to manage it.

Some high-risk jobs with asbestos can only be carried out by licensed contractors (eg pipe insulation, sprayed insulation panels or asbestos coatings). The HSE asbestos license page provides further information.

If you are in doubt whether it contains asbestos, suppose it exists until you are sure it is not.

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What can be done to reduce the danger of asbestos?

Exposure of workers to the dangers of asbestos is discussed in OSHA standards specifically for the construction industry, general industry, and also the employment sector in shipyards. These standards reduce risks for workers by requiring employers to provide personal exposure monitoring to assess risk training and the dangers to operations where there is potential for exposure to asbestos. The level of asbestos in the air never exceeds the exposure limit of legal workers. There is no "safe" level of exposure to asbestos for all types of asbestos fibers.4, 5 Asbestos is exposed to as short as its duration because several days have caused mesothelioma in humans. Any occupational exposure to asbestos can cause injury to the disease; any exposure to asbestos at work contributes to the risk of developing asbestos-related diseases. Namely Where there is exposure, employers are required to better protect workers by setting regulated areas, controlling certain work practices and institutionalizing technical controls to reduce levels in the air. Employers are required to ensure exposure is reduced by using administrative controls and provide for the use of personal protective equipment. Medical monitoring of workers is also needed when legal limits and exposure times are exceeded.

Danger

Asbestos workers have increased the likelihood of developing two main types of cancer: cancer of the lung tissue itself as well as mesothelioma, the thin membrane cancer that surrounds the lungs and other internal organs. These diseases do not develop immediately after exposure to asbestos, but appear only after a few years. The following references explain the health hazards of asbestos by recognizing them.

Why is asbestos dangerous?

Asbestos still kills approximately 5,000 workers every year, this is more than the number of people killed on the road.

About 20 traders die every week as a result of past exposure

However, asbestos is not just a past problem. This can be present today in any building that was built or updated before 2000.

When materials containing asbestos are disturbed or damaged, the fibers are released into the air. When these fibers are inhaled, they can cause serious illness. These diseases will not affect you immediately; they often take a long time to develop, but after being diagnosed, it's often too late to do anything. This is why it is important for you to protect yourself now.

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Asbestos can cause the following fatal and serious diseases:

Mesothelioma

Mesothelioma

Mesothelioma is one cancer that affects the lining of the lungs (pleura) and also the layers that surround the lower digestive tract (peritoneum). This is almost exclusively associated with asbestos exposure and at the time of diagnosis, is almost always fatal.

Lung cancer associated with asbestos

Lung cancer associated with asbestos

Lung cancer associated with asbestos is the same as (looks the same as) lung cancer caused by smoking and other causes. It is estimated that there is about one lung cancer for each mesothelioma death.

Asbestosis

Asbestosis

Asbestosis is a condition of serious scarring of the lungs that usually occurs after exposure to asbestos for many years. This condition can cause progressive shortness of breath, and in severe cases can be fatal.

Pleural thickening

Pleural thickening

Pleural thickening is generally a problem that occurs after heavy asbestos exposure. The lining of the lungs (pleura) thickens and swells. If this becomes worse, the lungs themselves can be squeezed, and can cause shortness of breath and discomfort in the chest.