An epidemiological study conducted at the Puerta del Mar Hospital in Cadiz, Spain has concluded that aside from tobacco, asbestos is a primary factor in the area’s high cancer death rate. Asbestos is a highly toxic mineral fiber that was used regularly throughout the 20th century in the manufacture of automobile parts and construction materials. Its use has since been banned in Spain and in most first world nations, but asbestos-containing materials can still be found.
Any disturbance of materials containing asbestos can cause people to become exposed to microscopic asbestos fibers, which lodge in the lungs and fester for decades, eventually causing the onset of such fatal diseases as asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma, a rare cancer of the protective lining of the body’s major organs and cavities.
The two year scientific investigation at Puerta del Mar found that the effect of asbestos on lung cancer and pleural mesothelioma, which affects the lining of the lungs, is enormous. It also determined that socioeconomic aspects had a more direct impact on the cancer death rate, than the contaminating effects of the heavy industries because the lower classes had to make a living as best they could by working in jobs where they were regularly exposed to the carcinogen.
"The action and interaction of tobacco and asbestos heightened the health risks. This was the global context that explains what was happening in terms of risk factors to health," said Dr Escolar, Director of Preventive Medicine and Public Health.
Escolar also concluded that "Much has been said about the environmental effects from the point of view of chemical or physical contamination, but nothing has been said about the social medium as a determining factor in the incidence of cancer."
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