Town’s Asbestos and Mesothelioma Risk Subject of Study
|

Town’s Asbestos and Mesothelioma Risk Subject of Study

University of Pennsylvania researchers have announced that they will use a $1.2 million National Institutes of Health grant to study the residual effects of asbestos, the mineral that causes mesothelioma, on the town of Ambler, Pennsylvania. Once a bustling asbestos manufacturing town, Ambler is now home to two EPA Superfund cleanup sites. The Ambler Asbestos Piles, also known as the ‘White Mountains’, and the BoRit Asbestos site are all that is left of an industry that both supported and put the community at risk starting in 1897. Before it was known that asbestos caused mesothelioma and other health problems, thousands of unprotected workers had already been exposed. The mesothelioma risk in Ambler continued into the 1980’s when the last remaining…