asbestos health

Asbestos Dumping: A Lurking Menace

Most people are aware that working with asbestos can cause serious, life-threatening health hazards such as lung cancer and mesothelioma decades after exposure. Some people are aware that disturbing asbestos in commercial and residential buildings while remodeling or tearing them down is also extremely dangerous. But few consider that disposing of asbestos materials carries its …

Senate Approves 2014 National Asbestos Awareness Week

On January 16th, the United States Senate designated the first week of April 2014 as National Asbestos Awareness Week. As a part of this, the senate urged the Surgeon General to warn and educate people about asbestos exposure and its hazards to health. This began as National Asbestos Awareness Day but was changed in 2005 …

Risk Factors for Lung Cancer – It’s Not Just Smoking!

What is lung cancer? The National Cancer Institute defines it as cancer that forms in tissues of the lung, usually in the cells lining air passages. They estimated there would be 226,160 new cases and 160,340 deaths in the United States alone in 2012. As we’ve known for decades, smoking is by far the leading …

The Rotterdam Convention and Asbestos

May 2013 concluded the sixth meeting of the Rotterdam Conference. This conference discusses and votes on changes to the Rotterdam Convention, a multinational treaty promoting shared responsibilities between countries in relation to importation of hazardous materials. This group determines what materials and chemicals are added to a Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedure. What is the …