Asbestos Exposure and Children

A major concern of many parents is their child’s health. In fact, this is a general concern of our entire population as children are very precious so their health and safety needs to be protected.

This is why a hot topic these days is the presence of asbestos, a known deadly carcinogen, in the schools our children attend, especially as the question of whether or not children are more at risk from asbestos exposure than adults is coming more into the public consciousness.

Are children more vulnerable to asbestos-related diseases after asbestos exposure?

Yes, unfortunately, children are more at risk from asbestos exposure than adults. Why?

Asbestos-related diseases have a latency period during which the disease develops. Children have a longer time to live, which gives asbestos-related diseases enough time to develop within a child’s lifetime.

How does this work?

Assuming a thirty-year latency period, a person exposed at fifty years of age will be eighty when an asbestos-related disease develops but a child exposed at ten will only be forty when they develop an asbestos-related disease. The likelihood of the child being alive a forty is greater than the likelihood of the adult being alive at eighty years of age. You can see then that a child is ultimately more likely to develop an asbestos-related disease than the adult simply because the disease has more time to develop.

While it hasn’t been confirmed through scientific study, it is also suspected that children are more susceptible to the harmful effects of asbestos exposure due to their physical immaturity. Many doctors warn that children are not just ‘little adults’ and because their bodies aren’t fully developed, they have different reactions and interactions with hazards like asbestos than adults.

Children are also different than adults in that they have exploratory behaviours and an undeveloped understanding on danger that can lead to exposure to hazards like asbestos. And, as discussed, they have longer life expectancies than adults. Moreover, children spend time in different environments than adults. Young children spend a lot more time in the home than adults and then, as they age, they spend a lot of time in school, another different environment than adults with exception of course to those who work in schools and daycares.

Asbestos in Schools

Asbestos is present in many schools in industrialized countries like Canada and the United States because it was widely used in a large variety of building materials throughout the twentieth century due to its useful properties such as inflammability and durability.

Sadly, we now know that the use of asbestos comes at the cost of human health: those who mine, process, and work with the mineral can develop asbestos related diseases such as mesothelioma, asbestosis, and lung cancer.

People are also at risk of the health effects of asbestos exposure if they spend a lot of time in buildings in which asbestos fibres are present in the air. As mentioned, children spend much of their time in school so if there were asbestos fibres in the air they breathe school can become a very dangerous situation as an environment of long-term exposure to the hazard. 

If asbestos was part of a school’s building materials and then was disturbed due to renovation or wear over time, children’s health could be at risk as they could develop asbestos-related diseases down the road.

The Precautionary Principle

Many pushing governments around the world to remove asbestos from schools argue that we must act with the precautionary principle in mind – that is, even though we don’t know for sure that children are even more at risk from asbestos exposure than adults due to their physical immaturity, we should act as if they were and remove asbestos from schools as soon as possible because if we do not take this precaution and evidence confirms that children are more at risk, then many children will have been unnecessarily put in harms way.

Resources:

Asbestos Exposure In Schools. (2011). Increased vulnerability of children to asbestos: the precautionary principle. Retrieved July 2013 from http://www.asbestosexposureschools.co.uk/pdfnewslinks/CHILDREN%20increased%20vulnerability%20to%20asbestos%202%20Nov%2009.pdf.

Joint Union Asbestos Committee. (2013). Children are more at risk from exposure to asbestos. Retrieved July 2013 from http://www.juac.org.uk/blog/children-are-more-at-risk-from-exposure-to-asbestos.

World Health Organization. (2008). Children are not little adults. Retrieved July 2013 from http://www.who.int/ceh/capacity/Children_are_not_little_adults.pdf. 

Reduce Your Risk Of Asbestos Exposure In Your Home

Asbestos, though potentially deadly as a carcinogen, is a very useful product. For this reason, it is very likely to be all around us, in many buildings built before 2000. Learn how to reduce the risk of asbestos exposure in your home below.

When is asbestos dangerous?

Asbestos is dangerous when present in the air we breathe. It is especially problematic when we are exposed to it over long period of time in large concentrations but even less intensive exposure to the fibres can be result in asbestos-related diseases.

If asbestos fibres are disturbed, they are released into the air, where they become health hazards. Disturbing asbestos fibres can occur often in subtle ways. Firstly, asbestos containing materials are a diverse group of products. Furthermore, asbestos is difficult to detect without laboratory testing because it doesn’t have a distinct smell or colour. It doesn’t even have a distinct ‘look’ because it is most often mixed with other minerals in one product.

Asbestos fibres under a microscope. 

Get Help From The Experts

Make sure you get your home tested for asbestos if it was built before 2000. This must be done before you begin renovations or any other action that could disturb asbestos fibres if they are present. Call an experienced contractor trained in asbestos to inspect your home and complete required laboratory tests. 

Do not remove asbestos products by yourself. You should call a contractor who knows how to handle the hazardous material properly to minimize risk for everyone. While this can be expensive, it is worth it to protect your health.

Keeping Yourself Safe

If you think there is asbestos in your house, seal of the area temporarily until workers arrive to remove it. Or, if the asbestos is isolated, do not disturb it so the fibres will not get into the air.

During asbestos removal, workers should take maximum precautions to keep themselves and others in the area safe. This includes keeping dust in the work area by reducing air pressure and keeping the area moist as well as wearing protective equipment like approved facemasks and other protective clothing that is washed separate from regular clothes.

Again, asbestos removal should only be done by a qualified expert in order to protect everyone’s health. 

Asbestos warning sign: remember to protect yourself

Resources:

Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation. (2013). Asbestos. Retrieved June 2013 from http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/co/maho/yohoyohe/inaiqu/inaiqu_001.cfm.

Wastech. (ND). Asbestos Disposal Control. Retrieved June 2013 from http://www.wastech.ca/uploads/Wastech%20asbestos%20info%20May2012.pdf.pdf. 

Does Asbestos Harm The Environment?

In our last CCSN article, my colleague Tim Povtak wrote about the damage that asbestos can do to your body. Today, Jackie kindly opened the floor for me to discuss the damage it can do to the earth.

It’s ironic to think that a mineral that originates in the earth could actually end up hurting it. But that’s exactly the case with asbestos.

The naturally occurring fibers are found in various environmental deposits. They’re often intertwined with rock formations and other minerals, such as quartz and limestone. Unfortunately, mining these co-existing minerals can release the nearby asbestos into the air. (Asbestos itself is no longer mined in Canada, but the fibers that were released during the process may still be present in the environment.)

Even if it’s already been mined and processed, construction or building demolition can re-introduce asbestos back into the environment. For instance, if construction crews bulldoze an asbestos-containing building without addressing the asbestos products beforehand, the contaminated debris becomes an exposure hazard.

What Happens after Asbestos is in the Air?

Like dandelion florets, asbestos fibers can float through the air for long distances. Even if they land, another gust of wind can pick them back up and send them elsewhere. This allows them to travel long distances and eventually settle far from the original deposit.

Asbestos can settle in rivers or streams, which then contaminates the area’s water supply. One Minnesota study found 2.6 million asbestos fibers per liter of drinking water sourced from Two Harbors, and 1.9 million fibers per liter of Beaver Bay water. Those levels are more than high enough to cause illness if ingested.

The fibers can also settle in a thin layer on top of soil. It doesn’t sink into the ground, and it’s not bio-degradable. It’s even impervious to fire.

That durable, hard-to-destroy quality is exactly why so many companies once mined the fibers for industrial use. Unfortunately, because it was so widely used, there’s now a “background level” of asbestos in the environment, which everyone is exposed to.

That ambient asbestos level is low enough that most people will only inhale a fiber or two throughout their lifetimes, and will never develop health effects. But for the unlucky few – for instance, those who developed peritoneal mesothelioma from swallowing asbestos-contaminated water – that fure is still a serious environmental problem. Once diagnosed, the life span for a mesothelioma patient is usually up to one year.

Faith Franz is a researcher and writer for The Mesothelioma Center. She advocates for alternative medicine and encourages patients to explore all of their treatment options.

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Resources:

Horvitz, J. S. (1974). Asbestos and its Environmental Impact. Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review; 3:1. Retrieved from http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1941&context=ealr