Mesothelioma Web is introducing a school asbestos information section to inform parents about the risks of asbestos exposure in schools. The new section provides information on materials that commonly contain asbestos, frequently asked questions and how parents can find out if their school contains asbestos.
Asbestos was commonly used in school construction in the United States and the UK. In the United States, schools that contain asbestos are required to have management plans and many schools have removed, sealed, or enclosed the material.
However as buildings age and require maintenance and repair, the odds of workers, teachers and students accidentally coming into contact with asbestos containing materials has increased. The EPA says that up to one-third of schools in the United States, covering 14 million students require extensive repair and renovation and some of that includes asbestos abatement.
In 1992 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated that 15 million children are attending schools that contain asbestos and three years later they stated that approximately 30,000 schools in the United States will require cleanup of asbestos.
Asbestos related diseases often show up decades after exposure. While there are no definite cases of children who developed asbestos related diseases from contaminated material in their schools, there have been recent cases of men and women in their early and mid-20s diagnosed with mesothelioma with no history of working with the material.
One alarming statistic from the UK shows a large number of teachers have died from mesothelioma, a cancer caused by asbestos exposure. The UK Health and Safety Executive showed that between 1980 and 2000 183 teachers died from mesothelioma. In the four year period from 2002 to 2005, 76 teachers died, twice the rate of the previous two decades.
Our section on asbestos in schools complements additional segments including asbestos dangers in the community and asbestos exposure risks for firefighters.
MesotheliomaWeb is dedicated to informing the public about the dangers of asbestos and providing information for those who may have been exposed to the material or diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease.
