Smoking, Asbestos, and Asbestosis Increases Risk for Lung Cancer

Posted by Cleo Spencer on

Smoking is well-documented as one of the leading causes of lung cancer. Some research indicates that as many as 90% of all cases of lung cancer are caused by chronic cigarette or cigar smoke exposure. What is less well-known and well-documented is asbestos’s connection to lung cancer.

Asbestos Damages Lungs, Too

While smoking may be responsible for the vast majority of lung cancer cases, long-term exposure to asbestos may have just as heavy an impact on lung cancer risk. Those that work with insulation manufactured before the asbestos ban, whether making it, installing it, or now removing it, have a much higher chance of being exposed to asbestos, especially in the long term.

These people have a much higher risk of developing diseases like asbestosis, which is characterized by heavy scarring in the lungs. This, in turn, can further raise the risk for lung cancer, as it causes damage similar to smoking.

Lung Cancer Rates Rise When Smokers Are Exposed to Asbestos

In studies concerning individuals who both smoke and have chronic asbestos exposure, researchers found that those who had both of these risk factors were much more likely to develop lung cancer than those who were either not exposed to asbestos (but did smoke) or did not smoke (and were never exposed to asbestos). The longer someone was exposed to asbestos, the higher their risk of developing lung cancer.

Even those who has stopped smoking, classified as former smokers, still had a much higher chance of developing lung cancer, when combined with asbestos exposure, than those who were just exposed to asbestos. This led the researchers to conclude that more than a quarter of all lung cancer cases could be attributed to both long-term smoking and long-term asbestos exposure.

Quitting Smoking Can Decrease Risk of Lung Cancer

While the damage does persist, even after a person stops smoking, in general, a person who had quit smoking had half the chance of developing lung cancer, compared to someone who was still currently smoking, even with high asbestos exposure, according to the most recent studies.

It seems that there is a link between asbestosis and lung cancer, there does not seem to be a connection between smoking and an increased risk of mesothelioma, even though mesothelioma is often viewed as a hyper-aggressive form of cancer that occurs in the lining of the lungs.

About Brickley Environmental

Brickley Environmental creates safe-and-sound schools, homes, and buildings by designing and executing safe, cost-effective containment, abatement and removal solutions. We do it right the first time — making your profits predictable while supporting your ethical standards and reputation for excellence — and have served Southern California for over 30 years.

Hazardous Waste Is a Danger to Water and Well-Being

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There are still companies illegally washing hazardous waste into water systems all over the world. It’s difficult to argue that there’s nothing morally wrong with this kind of dumping when the physical and environmental side effects of hazardous waste are obvious. For example, the criminals who dump reduced-duty diesel in rivers in Ireland, can’t deny that when the sludge touches a person or animal, it creates serious chemical burns. That’s one of the reasons this substance is classified as hazardous waste.

Despite posing a serious health risk, most of the people involved in these illegal operations believe that if they filter the fuel through cat litter or “burn off” the dye by adding sulphuric acid to the mix, it will be safe.

When the waste hits the water supply it doesn’t just harm any humans who come into contact with it, it also kills off everything in the river, from the largest fish to the smallest microscopic creatures. The substances that are most commonly dumped into the water supply contain polycyclic hydrocarbons, where are directly linked to diseases like cancer. In the instance that a pregnant woman comes into contact with this chemical, the child can have a range of serious malformations.

Why does so much waste get dumped in nature? Largely because if it was disposed of properly, how it was produced and why it was produced in the first place would be called into question. Some of the most dangerous and common chemicals being dumped around Ireland, for example, are the result of illegal fuel laundering setups. Most of the time, these spills are “accidental,” meaning that when chemicals reach the water supply it because of a mistake at one of the manufacturing places or because the people doing this illegal activity do not have the right storage, transportation, or cleaning facilities for the fuel.

If there is a serious problem in transport, for example, most of these undertrained and usually unlicensed drivers will abandon the leaking truck, instead of trying to mitigate the damage the fuel and its waste creates. Even if the spill occurs far from water, the dangerous chemicals can leech into the ground water and find their way to major rivers and streams.

This problem does not just affect the fish in our rivers, it affects every person who relies of water from these streams and rivers, as traces of these chemicals can remain in the water even after purification and in the environment, even decades after the original spill.

About Brickley Environmental

Brickley Environmental creates safe-and-sound schools, homes, and buildings by designing and executing safe, cost-effective containment, abatement and removal solutions. We do it right the first time — making your profits predictable while supporting your ethical standards and reputation for excellence — and have served Southern California for over 30 years.

What Are the Most Common Mesothelioma Symptoms?

Posted by Cleo Spencer on

Each person’s symptoms will be unique to their situation and to their case of mesothelioma. How the symptoms manifest themselves and when they manifest themselves depends on the stage of the cancer. One of the reasons that mesothelioma is rarely caught into it is in very late stages is because the early warning signs are often attributed to other issues or go unnoticed by the individual. Here are some of the most common symptoms to look for:

Pleural Mesothelioma Symptoms

Most patients with pleural mesothelioma do not have any symptoms during the early stages of this disease, or if they do, most patients do not connect them to any type of cancer. For example, one of the most common symptoms of pleural mesothelioma is shortness of breath and a chronic cough. Because both of these can come on gradually and develop in severity over time, a person might not even notice these symptoms until some of the more serious have started to occur, like chest pain and weight loss.

Peritoneal Mesothelioma Symptoms

Pleural mesothelioma is the most common type of this cancer, followed by peritoneal. Common symptoms include weight loss, hernias, a feeling of fullness in the abdomen which can cause loss of appetite, bowel obstruction, fatigue, and even abdominal distension.

This type of mesothelioma develops not in the lining of the lungs, but in the lining of the abdomen, and therefore affects this area, especially the digestive track. Bowel obstruction is one of the most reliable warning signs of advanced stage mesothelioma, as it usually indicates that the tumors have begun to spread.

Pericardial Mesothelioma Symptoms

This third type of mesothelioma is incredibly rare, and therefore, not much is known about it or its symptoms. Patients who suffer from pericardial mesothelioma experience this cancer in the lining of the heart and usually report a difficulty breathing and chest pains, as the tumors grow in the pericardial lining and put pressure on the heart and lungs.

Testicular Mesothelioma Symptoms

Making up less than one percent of total mesothelioma cases, testicular mesothelioma is notoriously difficult to catch. With no real symptoms until the tumors have already started to spread, finding a lump on or in the testes is the only reported symptom.

When Will Symptoms Occur?

Most men do not start to experience any symptoms of any type of mesothelioma until an average of forty-eight years after exposure to asbestos. Women will usually not develop this disease or show any symptoms for more than fifty years after exposure.

Lead Poisoning: A Modern Plague Among Children

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In our modern society, most children in industrialized countries do not have to worry about the black plague or yellow fever or other diseases that killed or damaged so many children in past centuries. There is, however, a much more prevalent and dangerous problem for children in our society: lead poisoning. Lead in the air, in paint, in soil call all have serious effects on children and can be far more dangerous than most types of cancer.

One of the Most Preventable Diseases

Despite the fact that it is possible to prevent any kind of lead exposure, most of the American public does not give a second thought to exposing their child to paint, dust, and soil, all of which can contain significant levels of lead.

Why is lead poisoning so dangerous? Lead’s most potent effect is on the neurological system, especially of children less than seven years old. In between ages one and seven, the neurological system is a crucial stage of development, and high levels of lead exposure during this time can damage the entire system. It has both short term and long term ripples, including learning disabilities and emotional and behavioral problems.

More than four million households have high levels of lead, in a number of different forms. Lead paint is one of the most common sources of exposure. The paint on the walls might contain lead, as well as the paint on toys and furniture. Because children are prone to putting anything and everything in their mouths, it’s not uncommon for a child living in a lead-painted environment to actually ingest flakes of lead paint.

There are currently about a half million children in this country between the ages of one and five that are living with more than five micrograms per deciliter of lead in their blood. This is above the level that the Center for Disease Control considers reasonable and at which they state that remediation should occur. While total overall levels of lead poisoning have started to decrease, lead continues to be an issue.

Children who eat lead paint will show physical signs of sickness, while children who are exposed to lead through pollution or dust will have now symptoms at the time of exposure, but will manifest some as the concentration of lead rises.

Is Asbestos Really Dangerous?

Posted by Cleo Spencer on

Yes! Asbestos is absolutely dangerous.

Asbestos is much worse than BPA or Lead, or any of those other things you shouldn’t put in your mouth. Exposure to asbestos can cause mesothelioma, lung cancer and other potentially deadly diseases.

Although the benefits of asbestos include fire-proofing, and insulation, and sound deadening, the harmful effects of becoming exposed to its fibers can be dangerous.

Check out the video above to learn more about the harmful dangers of asbestos and resulting mesothelioma.

About Brickley Environmental

Brickley Environmental creates safe-and-sound schools, homes, and buildings by designing and executing safe, cost-effective containment, abatement and removal solutions. We do it right the first time — making your profits predictable while supporting your ethical standards and reputation for excellence — and have served Southern California for over 30 years.