Asbestos Exposure and Asbestos Disease

When asbestos exposure occurs, microscopic asbestos fibers are inhaled into the lungs and will sometimes become embedded.


The asbestos fibers may scar the lungs, leading to asbestosis, and they may penetrate further into the mesothelium to later form mesothelioma cancer.

The mesothelioma disease usually takes twenty or more years to develop, and people that worked with asbestos in the 1970s may currently start showing signs of disease.



Most (but not all) commercial products were no longer manufactured with asbestos after 1978, but since asbestos health effects can take 20-30 or more years to show up, there may still be many people who worked with asbestos who are just now starting to show symptoms.

In addition, much of the asbestos containing materials that were put into place prior to 1978 remain, and possibilities remain that asbestos exposure can still happen even to this day.

Mesothelioma and Asbestos Disease

Exposure to asbestos harms the lungs, causing diseases such as mesothelioma and asbestosis. Mesothelioma is a cancer that forms in the protective lining around the lungs, and asbestosis is a scarring of the lung Mesothelioma lawyers and asbestos lawyers seem to advertise heavily on daytime TV commercials, but what exactly is mesothelioma? Mesothelioma disease is a particularly bad form of cancer that forms in the mesothelium, a protective lining that covers the lungs and other organs. Mesothelioma cancer is almost always the result of asbestos exposure, and life expectancy after mesothelioma disease is diagnosed is usually pretty short – months to a few years.