Prior and ongoing exposures to asbestos continue to contribute to respiratory diseases including mesothelioma, lung cancer, and asbestosis despite the fact that asbestos is no longer mined in the United States. Asbestos exposures are estimated to have contributed to 18,068 deaths from mesothelioma from 1999-2005 in the U.S. and asbestos-related diseases continue to be diagnosed.
To examine ongoing issues and concerns in this field, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) released a draft research roadmap in January 2009 that provides an overview of the state of the science and a plan for future research in areas including toxicology, mineralogy, epidemiology, and exposure assessment. The proposed research focuses on clarifying the relationship between human health effects and the physical and chemical characteristics of a wide range of elongate mineral particles.
NIOSH asked the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council to review the scientific and technical quality of the draft NIOSH Roadmap. In its 2009 report, A Review of the NIOSH Roadmap for Research on Asbestos Fibers and Other Elongate Mineral Particles, the IOM finds that NIOSH has put together a comprehensive and broad-based research Roadmap that could be improved through implementing a systematic and interdisciplinary approach to the outlined research.