Asbestos is an important occupational and environmental toxicant that affects several cell types in the respiratory tract. In an effort to understand how asbestos causes cell injury and/or altered proliferation and differentiation of cells, this laboratory has focused on reactive oxygen species as mediators of asbestos-induced biological effects. A compendium of experimental results reported by...

Although automotive friction products (brakes and manual clutches) historically contained chrysotile asbestos, industrial hygiene surveys and epidemiologic studies of auto mechanics have consistently shown that these workers are not at an increased risk of developing asbestos-related diseases. Airborne asbestos levels during brake repair and brake parts handling have been well-characterized, bu...

Although studies of populations exposed to high concentrations of asbestos fibers in drinking water appear attractive as research opportunities to define an asbestos-related risk, they are unlikely to provide a definitive answer to the question of whether asbestos in drinking water is associated with an elevated risk of malignancy. Consider, for example, a hypothetical 10-yr analysis of the dea...

This study provided data that can be used to discriminate asbestiform and non-asbestiform amphiboles contained in landscaping rocks recreational parks. The length width of fibers being at least 5 μm long with a minimum aspect ratio 3:1 were measured using transmission electron microscope compared an asbestos reference sample. park samples thicker than 1 (average 1.9 μm), while the Health Safe...

Inhalation of asbestos fibers causes pulmonary inflammation and eventual pulmonary fibrosis (asbestosis). Although the underlying molecular events are poorly understood, protease/antiprotease and oxidant/antioxidant imbalances are believed to contribute to the disease. Implicated in other forms of pulmonary fibrosis, the matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) have not been examined in asbestosis. We ...

Among 2,968 women and girls exposed to crocidolite (blue asbestos) at Wittenoom, three cases of choriocarcinoma and three cases of hydatidiform mole have been identified (crude incidence rate of 9.9 per 1000 women and 1.7 per 1000 deliveries for choriocarcinoma and hydatidiform mole, respectively). The women with choriocarcinoma were resident at Wittenoom at the time of disease development, whe...

Asbestos is a generic term used to describe natural mineral fibers found in the ground in many regions of the world. This cheap material with special chemical and physical properties that make it virtually indestructible was widely used in the 20th century. Within twenty years of the first industrial production, the public health hazards associated with asbestos started to come to light. Asbest...

Fibrin clots have been detected at sites of inflammation, and kinins have been implicated as mediators of the vascular phenomena of acute inflammation, systemic shock, and disseminated intravascular coagulation. It is now reported that both negatively and positively charged asbestos fibers shorten the partial thromboplastin time of human plasma, indicating coagulation of the plasma. A sample co...