Posted by David Sherman on Thursday, September 28, 2006 at 12:52PM :
In Reply to: Re: Lead poisoning posted by MoparNorm on Thursday, September 28, 2006 at 10:38AM :
Yep. There's a big lawsuit going on with the asbestos miners in Libby Montana who got mesothelioma, which is a certain lung cancer that almost always is caused by asbestos. The thing is, it almost always requires smoking as well. The chance of getting mesothelioma from breathing asbestos dust is 10 times as great if you smoke as if you don't smoke. It's probably similar with other rock dusts. The thing is the nicotine paralyses the little hairs in the lungs that clean all the dust out, so the dust just sits there. It's a bad combination, and something to keep in mind when we sandblast, use a wire wheel or grinder, or take asbestos off of old boiler pipes. If you smoke, it's 10X more important to wear a good dust mask.
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