AsbestosAsbestos Industry
Who is at Risk?Millwrights
History and Background
Millwright is a general term that refers to those people who install and repair machinery and heavy equipment. These men and women install many different things including: conveyor systems, escalators, giant turbines, generators and boilers among others. These provide the heat and electricity that is integral to every new building. Millwrights also maintain the pieces they have assembled and also dismantle older pieces that are no longer required. It is a difficult occupation that can take years of training to perfect as precision is extremely important. In 2002 there were 69,000 millwrights in the United States.
Tasks Putting Millwrights at Risk for Asbestos Exposure
As a part of the construction industry, millwrights were exposed to asbestos throughout the past several decades. Asbestos dust, if inhaled, can be extremely hazardous to one's health as discussed below. Many of the pieces that millwrights assembled were made with asbestos. For example, boilers often have asbestos insulation, asbestos was used in gaskets in order to seal valves, and moving parts within turbines and generators were often made with asbestos or coated with it in order to protect against heat damage.
While assembling these pieces, millwrights often use cutting torches, welding machines and soldering guns. If a piece did not fit perfectly, the millwright would have to cut it or grind it so that it was exactly precise. Grinding, welding, and cutting metal pieces could result in asbestos dust getting into the air.
Millwrights also had to disassemble older pieces of equipment and could have been exposed to asbestos as a result. For example, in order to remove an old boiler it would have to be stripped of its insulation (asbestos) and broken down, potentially creating a dangerous work environment.
At Risk for Mesothelioma and Other Asbestos Diseases
By the mid 1970s, strong evidence was uncovered regarding the health dangers associated with prolonged exposure to asbestos. Many who had worked with asbestos for extended periods of time were coming down with pulmonary diseases (such as mesothelioma, lung cancer and asbestosis) from breathing asbestos dust.
The asbestos related diseases include:
- Mesothelioma: a type of cancer only caused by asbestos exposure that attacks the lining around the lungs and/or heart and/or abdomen. This cancer is not in the organs themselves, though untreated it will spread. The most common form is pleural mesothelioma (lung lining), then peritoneal mesothelioma (stomach lining), and then pericardial mesothelioma (heart lining).
- Asbestos Related Lung Cancer: while lung cancer can come from numerous sources, asbestos exposure can lead to the formation of a malignant tumor that blocks the air passages (common for smokers who were exposed to asbestos).
- Asbestosis: a pulmonary condition, only caused by exposure to asbestos, where scar tissue builds up in the lungs causing breathing problems and low blood flow.
The diseases associated with asbestos are similar in that their symptoms often do not appear for many years after exposure. It is not uncommon for someone to develop lung cancer after a 10 year lag between onset and initial exposure. Asbestosis and mesothelioma often do not become apparent for nearly 30 or 40 years after the initial exposure to asbestos. Common symptoms include: difficulty breathing, chest pains, a dry hacking cough that sometimes contained blood. These diseases are usually fatal.
The health problems associated with asbestos were not just isolated to millwrights who worked with the product. The asbestos dust would spread easily through the air putting workers who never used it at risk. Also, many family members were at risk as well because millwrights would return home with the dust on their clothes, shoes and even hair.
