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Exposure to asbestos usually occurs by breathing contaminated air in workplaces that make or use asbestos. Asbestos is also found in the air of buildings containing asbestos that are being torn down or renovated. Asbestos exposure can cause serious lung problems and cancer. This substance has been found in at least 83 of the 1,585 National Priorities List sites identified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

If inhaled by humans, asbestos fibres can cause asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma, a disease which is invariably fatal. This site discusses what asbestos is, asbestosis and other diseases caused by asbestos, pleural thickening, mesothelioma, lung Cancer, prevention, asbestos in buildings, and compensation. This form of cancer is peculiar because the only known cause is from asbestos exposure.

National Cancer Institute, found that people who live closer to ultramafic rock deposits, which typically contain asbestos, have higher risks than those farther away. That was before studies linked asbestos dust with cancer and lung disease. The delay between exposure to asbestos and the development of cancer is generally 20 or more years.

The type of cancers includes mesothelioma, asbestos lung cancer, and asbestosis. The known afflictions associated with asbestos exposure are asbestosis, lung cancer, mesothelioma and pleural plaques. Significant long term exposure to asbestos increases the risk of lung cancer, mesothelioma and non-malignant lung and pleural disorders.

Smoking also greatly aggravates the likelihood of lung cancer in workers exposed to asbestos (although smoking does not appear to increase the risk of mesothelioma). The asbestos fibers can cause lung cancer and other lung disease that may not appear until many years after exposure. But exposure to asbestos causes cancer and other diseases.

British asbestos workers were among the first who were observed to have lung cancer related to asbestos. Because of the recent renovation boom, home renovators are the new suffers of asbestos cancer, or mesothelioma. Scientists have developed a blood test that can predict years in advance whether someone will succumb to asbestos cancer.