The asbestos-caused cancer mesothelioma has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements against asbestos mining companies along with the manufacturers and users of asbestos products.  Mesothelioma usually appears in the lungs and usually ten to forty years after exposure to asbestos.

In the United States, many of these settlements have gone to asbestos miners, to their family members and to people whose employer manufactured asbestos products or to those who used asbestos during the course of a day’s work.

In the U.S. the most likely candidates for mesothelioma have been Navy veterans, plumbers and pipe fitters, miners and construction workers who used asbestos insulation or roofing tiles.  In Canada, the trends have been somewhat different.

Canada does not maintain a large Navy so their populace did not have widespread exposure to the asbestos pipe fittings and tiles used on Navy ships.   The United States has far more functioning ship repair facilities and has had a far larger wave of post-WW II construction, the years when asbestos was used for everything from ceiling tiles to insulation to shingles.

What the Canadian medical community has seen as a major source of mesothelioma cases is the auto repair industry.  One legal news site quotes from a Montreal physician who says ‘eighty five percent of the cases we see are people who worked in the auto industry’.

Brake shoes and engine gaskets are just two products that were primarily asbestos products since the early days of the auto industry.  People with careers in the auto maintenance business should realize the threat that years of exposure to the asbestos fibers contained in auto parts can be a physical threat, and should consult their physician at the first sign of a cough or shortness of breath.