Military Veterans Often Among Asbestos Sufferers
A recent study released resented at this week’s American Society of Clinical Oncology conference and published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology has confirmed what isn’t exactly a huge surprise: veterans who served from World War II through the Vietnam era at at high risk of asbestos-related mesothelioma.
The study examined 928 veterans and determined that they had on average 7 months to live after being diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma.
Patients who had Stage I mesothelioma lived an average of 9.6 months after diagnosis. Stage II patients lived an average of 10.3 months, while Stages III and IV lived an average of 6.7 months and 5.3 months.
Like many cases of mesothelioma, the exposure often came many decades ago, with the cancer only appearing and becoming malignant later in their lives.
About 30% of mesothelioma sufferers served in the military, with exposure most often coming from building products used in constructing barracks and other buildings as well as a host of other products that contained asbestos. All branches of the military used asbestos from between the 1940s and the 1970s.
As is with the case of people exposed to asbestos in other fields, spouses and family members of veterans could also have been exposed second-hand through contact with clothes.