Asbestos leads to mesothelioma

Although asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral, it is very harmful to the human body, to the lungs and eyes especially. Without going into how asbestos leads to mesothelioma right away, I though I'd discuss a few of the types of asbestos first. There are six minerals are defined as "asbestos" including: chrysotile, amosite, crocidolite, tremolite, anthophyllite and actinolite:

Chrysotile commonly occurs as soft friable fibers. Asbestiform amphibole may also occur as soft friable fibers, but some varieties such as amosite are commonly straighter. All forms of asbestos are fibrillar, composed of fibers with widths less than 1 micrometre that occur in bundles and have very long lengths. Asbestos with particularly fine fibers is also referred to as "amianthus". Amphiboles such as tremolite have a sheetlike crystalline structure. Serpentine (chrysotile) has a stringlike crystalline structure. Tremolite often comtaminates chrysotile asbestos, thus creating an additional hazard.

Of these six minerals, there are 4 types of asbestos, white asbestos, brown asbestos, blue asbestos and other asbestos and they all are a contaminant of the human body. Most respirable asbestos fibers are invisible to the unaided human eye because their size is about 3.0-20.0 µm in length and can be as thin as 0.01 µm (human hair ranges in size from 17 to 181 µm in width.) Fibers ultimately form because when these minerals originally cooled and crystallized, they formed by the polymeric molecules lining up parallel with each other and forming oriented crystal lattices. These crystals thus have three cleavage planes, just as other minerals and gemstones have. But in asbestos, there are two cleavage planes that are much weaker than the third direction. When sufficient force is applied, they tend to break along their weakest directions, resulting in a linear fragmentation pattern and hence a fibrous form. This fracture process can keep occurring, and one larger asbestos fiber can ultimately become the source of hundreds of much thinner and smaller fibers.

As asbestos fibers get smaller and lighter, the become more easily airborne, and human respiratory exposures can result. Fibers will eventually settle but may be re-suspended by air currents or other movement.

Friability of a product containing asbestos means that it is so soft and weak in structure that it can be broken with simple finger crushing pressure. Friable materials are of the most initial concern because of their ease of damage. The forces or conditions of usage that come into intimate contact with most non-friable materials containing asbestos are substantially higher than finger pressure.

Asbestos exposure in the modern world is slowing down, however effects from the past are becoming more apparent. The third world is having difficulty ridding their cities of asbestos contaminated structures. With raised awareness, we can only make progress, even if it is a little at a time.