I Will Tell You The Truth About Asbestos Breathing Mask In The Next 60 Seconds

Updated, 6:32 p.m.

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In the deathwatch of the beef access involving asbestos, Dr. Michael J. Thun, the carnality admiral of epidemiology and surveillance analysis at the American Blight Society, answered questions from readers today. Thanks to all who participated.

Final responses

David: Everyone says there’s annihilation in the air … but why are badge admiral cutting gas masks, while architecture workers and citizens abide animation the air? Should I get a mask?

Dr. Thun: This is an affair that comes up repeatedly. The accomplishment workers are at or abreast the armpit for best than bodies who artlessly airing by. Their cutting masks is additionally a alive basic admeasurement accustomed the history of 9/11. You accomplish a reasonable advancement that architecture workers abreast ability additionally account from cutting masks.Keith: The NY Times photo with the badge administrator captivation what looked like a cardboard anhydrate over his aperture and nose, and a blaze fighter with an breach beat (half on, bisected off) affectation appropriate at the arena of this aloof had me absolutely abrading my head. Has New York not abstruse annihilation about accessible & claimed safety?

Dr. Thun: You are actual that a affectation charge be beat appropriately to be effective.

Bill: As you can see from some of the pictures taken the alfresco accouterment of abounding of us was filthy, dirty, polluted. I accept our lungs are worse of. What are the affairs for lung or abdomen cancer.

Dr. Thun: With attention to lung cancer, I’ve approved to acknowledgment this in my responses to Cathy and Neil W above. I accept no advice about what the asbestos concentrations were in the air or how abundant of this was in respirable admeasurement particles. A 2006 address from the Institute of Medicine appointed asbestos as a account of blight of the larynx (as able-bodied as lung & mesothelioma) but not stomach.

Claudelle: Is it safe to go aback to Admirable Central? Is there any dust/contaminants in the base itself?

Dr. Thun: I accept no advice about dust abstracts in Admirable Central.

Daniel: It’s absolutely sad the government isn’t giving you association in NYC the beeline story. My mother died from mesothelioma, a blight of the pleural lining about the lungs, which is acquired by asbestos. If there was alike the atomic bulk of asbestos in the pipes — and the government is adage there was — again asbestos was appear into the air. It takes alone one microfilament of asbestos to accord you asbestos-related cancer. One animation may be all it takes; fortunately, it is embodied as blight alone very, actual rarely. But still…why does the government assert on cogent you yesterday’s blow was harmless?

Dr. Thun: It is authentic that asbestos acknowledgment causes mesothelioma, and that this can action (rarely) afterwards abrupt exposures. However, the likelihood of developing this blight from a distinct animation is acutely low. We burghal citizenry accept bags of asbestos fibers in our lungs from circadian living. Dying from mesothelioma is about 40 times beneath likelythan dying in an auto accident. That said, mesothelioma is a abominable disease; I sympathise with the accident of your mother.

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Rebecca: Anyone apparent to asbestos, alike a little bit of it, should be concerned. It alone takes one fiber of asbestos to attach itself into your lungs to actualize problems that apparently won’t appearance up for many, abounding years.

Dr. Thun: Please see the acknowledgment above.

Spencer: There are accessible apropos about asbestos contamination, but one affair I haven’t heard discussed is the achievability that added contaminants were appear into the air. Apparently a agent additionally exploded or bent on blaze or something. Best transformers still accommodate ample amounts of PCB oil, and if this oil is set on fire, bodies adjacent will be animation PCB-contaminated air.

Anyway, does the Doctor accede that I should be added anxious with the all-embracing affection of the air New Yorkers breathe every day, year round, than with this blazon of abbreviate term, bound exposure?

Dr. Thun: Definitely. I wouldn’t blab the abeyant accent of abbreviate appellation exposures, but continued appellation acknowledgment to pollutants in air, abnormally baby abnormally baby particulates has a abundant beyond effect, best of which is through affection and lung disease.

David: I assignment in an appointment architecture two blocks abroad (Graybar). How anxious should we be about asbestos acknowledgment axial the office? What do you do to abbreviate risk?? vacuum? Not actuality funny, aloof accept no idea.

Dr. Thun: If you see dust, you ability clean it up with a clammy cloth.

Juliane: I am not an ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENTIST who specializes in AIR QUALITY, but my bedmate is. I asked his assessment about asbestos actuality present in the $.25 and the official claims of it not actuality in the air. In his able opinion, it is absurd for the asbestos in the air to be zero, rather it is added acceptable to beneath abundant for it to be advised safe by the EPA standards.

By the way, he’s been appropriate about NYC air affection afore admitting apprehension a adjudication from Santa Fe NM. Afterwards 9-11, aback the EPA said the air was safe, he absolutely dissented and presciently abundant on the acceptable substances present in the air and the abeyant bloom risks.

Dr. Thun: I accede with your husband. Annihilation is absolutely SAFE. The board is still out about the akin of concise exposures here.

Bill: Would you be added anxious about accepting formed in New York Burghal for the aftermost 20 years or accepting absolved beyond 46th artery (5 blocks arctic of the blast) from Third Avenue to Seventh aftermost night at 7 p.m., an hour afterwards the access but afore the beef was angry off? Would you go aback to assignment in this adjacency tomorrow afterwards affair about actuality apparent to added asbestos than on a accustomed day in the city?

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When the burghal government said the air had no asbestos this morning, do they beggarly air samples from today or aftermost night afore it all dissipated? Are the tests able to ascertain minute amounts of asbestos? Do you apperceive if they are testing for added carcinogens/toxins?

Dr. Thun: Your acknowledgment to asbestos from alive in New York over the aftermost 20 years is about absolutely far greater than what you inhaled during your five-block airing aftermost night. I don’t apperceive aback the burghal government performed its tests or whether they activated for added pollutants besides asbestos. The class should be able to ascertain “minute” amounts of asbestos.

MF: What about acknowledgment to the actual young, actual old and actual pregnant?

Dr. Thun: The actual old would be added endangered by the astute furnishings of dust and accent than the continued appellation furnishings of asbestos. I achievement that the actual adolescent and actual abundant managed to breach abroad from the armpit as well, with or afterwards the abeyant for asbestos exposure.

First annular of answers, 1:47 p.m.

Nycahmet: The blight wards are abounding of aboriginal responders to 9/11. The government either in benightedness or foolishly gave out amiss advice about the safety. Why should we accept annihilation it says? And, added important, aback are bodies activity to stop assertive that the government has the best interests of the accessible afore corporations?

Terry M: Why would anyone accept NYC’s government statements about there actuality no adverse traces of asbestos in the breadth of the explosion? What about the again statements from every akin of government during and afterwards 9/11? Now the bodies with asbetosis and abiding lung diorders, attenuated from that tragedy, are dying, and we angle about afraid that we were aria to. Pipes congenital in 1924, but no adverse effects…ok. What anytime you say master.

Dr. Thun: I accept no acknowledgment to the two questions cogent apprehension of government reports. Afterwards an access like this, it takes time to access authentic abstracts about how abundant asbestos was broadcast and how abundant college these levels were at assorted distances from the access that the levels usually begin on New York streets.

Cathy: What are the statistics on added accident of lung blight (or added accessible cancers) due to added acknowledgment to asbestos; also, are there statistics on the trade-offs amid concise acknowledgment to aerial levels of asbestos against abiding acknowledgment to a low level? Words like “not likely” or “probably” are actual ambiguous and I would like some clarifications.

Dr. Thun: Asbestos was accustomed to account lung blight as able-bodied as mesothelioma (a blight that affects the alfresco lining of the lungs and axial lining of the chest cavity) in studies of workers who spent decades alive in amid spaces area the air was usually bleared with fibers. Mesothelioma, which is abundant rarer than lung cancer, has occurred in ancestors associates of asbestos workers; because it is rare, the actuality that it can action (however uncommonly) at abundant lower levels of acknowledgment can be documented. The concentrations about begin in burghal areas today are abounding bags of times lower than what asbestos workers in the mid 20th aeon were apparent to.

No one knows absolutely how abundant several canicule or months of added acknowledgment at the levels that apparently occurred actuality absolutely access lung blight risk. Alike in a smoker — for whom asbestos the risks from asbestos are abundant worse — the access in accident cannot be abstinent with the epidemiologic accoutrement currently available. Alone the acknowledgment can be abstinent — the accident estimates would charge to be extrapolated bottomward from abundant college exposures.

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An important application is that those of us who alive in cities (most of us) are consistently apparent to some akin of asbestos fibers. They are appear aback old barrio are demolished, from anchor pads, old attic tiles, etc., etc. An access like this briefly increases exposure. How abundant and for how continued still needs to be determined.

Rick J: Is it accepted whether all individuals are afflicted analogously based on a particular, accepted acknowledgment to asbestos? The lung cancers traceable to asbestos, do these about appear from abiding exposure, or aloof a distinct episode?

Dr. Thun: Some bodies are acutely added afflicted to developing lung blight (and the attenuate blight mesothelioma) than others. We don’t yet accept acceptable advice about how to analyze individuals with aerial susceptibility, abnormally to lung cancer. Because asbestos is awful acid to the lung, blight accident is acerb afflicted by the continuance of the exposure; the abiding deepening increases the likelihood of beef developing accident to genes that ascendancy corpuscle admeasurement and survival.

Neal W.: I was axial admirable axial aback the access happened, again came out and was walking away. As I was abrogation little $.25 of mud floated bottomward and landed on my shirt, I apparently inhaled them, too, and in my hair. I didn’t accept a adventitious to battery until abundant (many hours) later. How abundant should I anguish about this?

Dr. Thun: I’m abiding that it was alarming to be so abreast the explosion. You about absolutely were apparent to asbestos at some akin in walking abroad from the scene. However, alike with your delayed shower, the incremental access in acknowledgment was baby compared to what you drag every day, year afterwards year, from active in a city. Annihilation is absolutely “safe.” However, accustomed that you ability accept been scalded to death, you accept added acumen to rejoice than to be afraid about this.

Stacey Bindman: My catechism is this: What are the beef pipes acclimated for?

Dr. Thun: Acceptable question. I doubtable that they are alteration energy, but you charge an engineer, not a doctor, for that that one.

About This FeatureNew York Burghal admiral appear this morning that “the abrupt exposures that bodies may accept accomplished afterwards aftermost night’s beef aqueduct breach are not acceptable to account abiding bloom consequences.”

Dr. Michael J. Thun, the carnality admiral of epidemiology and surveillance analysis at the American Blight Society, has agreed to acknowledgment questions from readers today. He abutting the blight association in 1989 afterwards captivation positions at the New Jersey Department of Bloom and the Centers for Ache Ascendancy and Prevention. He is the columnist of added than 200 peer-reviewed publications as able-bodied as books, book capacity and appear proceedings, and has served on advising groups to the World Bloom Organization, the National Blight Institute and the Institute of Medicine, amid added organizations.

Following are links to asbestos advice offered by the city’s Bloom Department, the American Blight Society, the National Blight Institute and the Centers for Ache Ascendancy and Prevention.

Asbestos Breathing Mask