Changes in the population of mesothelioma patients over the last twenty years reveal that the sickness and pain caused by asbestos are far from over and have been inherited by a new generation. In 1986, the median age of mesothelioma patients was nearly 70, and approximately 80 percent of mesothelioma patients were men. These patients were, for the most part, men who worked with or around asbestos early in their careers. Today, according to a recent report by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Association (ADAO), the median age at diagnosis of mesothelioma patients who contact the organization has dropped to 51, with women representing close to 50 percent of new cases. And the total number of cases diagnosed each year is expected to keep going up for the next several years.

Although some of the growing number of new patients will still be people who worked directly with asbestos, an increasing number of them are the children of those workers. Fathers who came home in their work clothes and hugged or picked up their children exposed them to asbestos fibers from their clothes. Of course, these men had no idea that they were risking their children’s lives and health, but the asbestos industry knew.
It has been known for decades that families were at risk for developing mesothelioma from exposure to asbestos on workers’ clothing.

Mesothelioma can develop from very low levels of exposure to asbestos, and children are particularly vulnerable to these exposures. The asbestos industry also knew how to protect families—simply by providing showers and laundry services at the workplace. In 1943, the Public Health Service issued an industrial hygiene manual stressing that employers should provide adequate shower facilities for workers and launder work clothing on site. If the asbestos industry had complied with these standards, it could have protected a whole generation of victims from being exposed to asbestos from its facilities.

Simply by going to work to support their families and coming home to spend time with them, thousands of men unknowing poisoned their children with asbestos. They didn’t know. Their employers did not protect them and did not warn them. And now, decades later, families continue to pay the price in increasing numbers.

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