Can fiberglass make you sick?
Fiberglass insulation may be capable of causing lung cancer in the same way that asbestos does.
Answered by Sarah J. -
About Lung Cancer
Lung cancer is the most common and most deadly cancer among men and women in the United States. Each year lung cancer takes more lives than colon, breast, prostate and lymph cancer combined. Cancer.gov states: “…more than 222,000 new cases expected in the United States in 2010.”
About Asbestos
Asbestos is a mineral fiber insulation with sound absorption, insulating, fire retardant and carcinogenic properties. People have been mining the fiber for thousands of years because of most of those properties. Charlemagne supposedly had a table cloth made of the stuff, and wealthy Persians used it like a party trick – amazing guests by cleaning the cloth by tossing it on the fire. By the industrial revolution, asbestos was widely used as insulation. The United States Navy thought these properties were perfect for insulating war ships and used it to insulate thousands of ships in World War II. By the mid 1930s researchers had documented thousands of cases of people developing lung and breathing disorders in asbestos mining towns.
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