Clapper, Patti, Schweizer and Mason

On-the-job exposure to asbestos, in construction industries, automotive plants, insulation manufacturing and shipbuilding, may result in an elevated risk of mesothelioma, a rare and deadly form of cancer, according to the study by Dr. Norio Kurumatani and Shinji Kumagal. The Japanese researchers found higher than expected death rates from mesothelioma among people who had lived near an asbestos cement pipe factory between1957 and 1975. The plant is now closed. The risk steadily declined as residents' distance from the plant increased, with elevated mesothelioma rates seen among people living up to roughly 1.5 miles downwind of the plant. Residents who died of mesothelioma developed symptoms of the disease an average of 43 years after their first year living near the plant, the study showed. Kurumatani is at the Nara Medical University School of Medicine in Kashihara, and Kumagal is affiliated with the Osaka Prefecture Institute of Public Health in Osaka.