Doctor Confirms First Death Caused by Asbestos Sprayed on Walls
The Asahi Shimbun
Highly toxic blue asbestos particles were found in the lungs of a man who died of mesothelioma last year, the nation's first confirmed case of a worker developing the cancer from asbestos sprayed on walls, a doctor said Monday.
The man worked at an Osaka stationery shop and its second-floor storage room from 1969 to 2003 where the walls had been sprayed with blue asbestos, said Yuji Natori, a doctor based in Tokyo's Koto Ward who is involved in heath issues related to asbestos.
Natori said his examination of the 70-year-old's body confirmed the lungs contained blue asbestos, the same substance used to cover the walls of the storage room.
Health problems caused by asbestos are well-known among workers at factories where asbestos was used or asbestos-related products were made.
But this is Japan's first confirmed death of person caused by asbestos sprayed on walls, Natori said.
The man's family intends to demand compensation from the company in charge of managing the building, supporters of the family said.
"He had been working in what we believed was a safe environment, not at an asbestos factory," a family member wrote in a memo.
The storage room was on the second floor of the store located under elevated railroad tracks, according to supporters and members at the Kansai Occupational Safety and Health Center.
As trains went by, the vibrations caused the uncovered asbestos particles to fly around the room, the officials said.
The man used to enter the room more than 30 times a day to fetch items. He also swept the room once or twice a month, they said.
He was found to be suffering from mesothelioma in 2002, and died last year.
In July this year, Natori found an average of 72 asbestos bodies--asbestos fiber attached with protein--per gram of lung tissue in dry weight.
According to Natori, roughly 1,000 asbestos bodies can be found in the lungs of a person who has inhaled asbestos in a asbestos-related workplace, such as a factory.
The asbestos found in the man's lungs fall short of the figure, but it is more than double the figure for ordinary people, which is about 30, Natori said.
In addition, most of the particles in the man's lungs were from blue asbestos, which cannot be found in ordinary people, he said.
The density of asbestos likely reached 136 fibers per liter of air in the storage room when the man swept the floors.
The figure ranges from one to four fibers under normal conditions, he said. Only about one particle was found on first floor of the stationery shop, Natori said.
"I think every person in a group of several tens of thousands or several hundreds of thousands would develop mesothelioma or other forms of lung cancer in similar conditions (of the storage room)," the doctor said.
"We need to countermeasures as soon as possible, including establishing standards for asbestos concentration in ordinary environments and studying cases of asbestos sprayed against the walls of small buildings." (IHT/Asahi: August 22,2005)
*** POSTED AUGUST 22, 2005 ***