According to a new study by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, asbestos disease patients are almost 20 years younger now than asbestos patients were 20 years ago.Typically, new patients are 51 years old and about half of them are women. Evidence demonstrates that patients newly diagnosed with asbestos related diseases such as mesothelioma, asbestosis, and lung cancer are as young as under the age of 40 and even more disturbing, have no direct occupational association to asbestos.
In 1990, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) published a study demonstrating that a typical asbestos patient was male and around 70 years old; more than half of these had occupational exposure. The new study changes all that.
Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) introduced the Ban Asbestos in America Act of 2007. Murray hopes the United States will follow the examples of dozens of other industrialized nations and ban the production and importation of asbestos.
Source: http://www.occupationalhazards.com/
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