A research study claims that 14 per cent of people have asbestos-damaged lungs, yet the mining continues
One person in seven shows signs of lung damage caused by exposure to asbestos, a meeting of Europe's top lung experts were told at the 11th Annual Congress of the European Respiratory Society held in Germany.

Despite increasingly strict exposure standards and bans on asbestos production, which have helped to reduce the number of asbestos-related lung diseases worldwide, scientists at the conference reported an alarming increase in the number of asbestos-related cancers.

Scientists believe this trend is likely to continue over the next 20 years, as disease in victims exposed to the mineral in the 1970s begins to develop, but also because millions of people, mainly in poorer countries, continue to suffer daily exposure to asbestos.

The danger of asbestos was re-emphasised by the results of a Belgian study released at the conference on 25 September. The results based on 160 post-mortem examinations conducted within a random urban population between 1998 and 2000 show that 14 per cent of the people studied had asbestos damaged lungs. In 13 per cent of those examined more than 1,000 asbestos fibres per gram of dry lung tissue were discovered.

Warnings about the danger of asbestos and tightened regulations have done little to reduce the production levels. In 2000, more than two million tonnes of asbestos was produced globally. The Russian Federation produced 700,000 tonnes, China 450,000 tonnes and Canada 335,000 tonnes.

'We know that occupational asbestos exposure in Western Europe, North America, Japan and Australia was at its peak in the 1970s,' said Antti Tossavainen of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in Helsinki. 'Now, recent estimates indicate that 30,000 new asbestos-related cancers continue to be diagnosed there every year. They include some 10,000 mesotheliomas and approximately 20,000 cases of lung cancer.'

In France the number of mesothelioma victims is expected to rise by 25 per cent every three years, with 150 deaths every year between 2010 and 2020 — almost double the rate seen between 1996 and 1997 — according to Marc Letourneux of the University Medical Center Côte de Nacre in France.

Worldwide, those most at risk are those who dismantle ships.

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