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All it takes to give you cancer is one asbestos fiber. Just has to punch through a lung cell and alter the DNA in just the right way. That said, the probabilit
by purple_ferret 6y ago
All it takes to give you cancer is one asbestos fiber. Just has to punch through a lung cell and alter the DNA in just the right way.
That said, the probability is low for any given fiber. There is asbestos in aftermarket break pads, meaning if you live in a major city, you probably breath in small amounts regularly.
- mypalmike 6y ago> All it takes to give you cancer is one asbestos fiber. This is oft repeated, but is there evidence that it is true? Are the statistical odds of getting cancer from asbestos really modeled on the risk that you will encounter a single particularly insidious individual fiber?
- kristofferR 6y agoThe issue is that the lungs doesn't always manage to clean the asbestos fibers at all, so some may be stuck in the lungs forever. One stuck fiber might lead to a cancer. It's very unlikely of course, but it could happen. A thousand stuck fibers are a thousand times more likely to cause cancer, but just one could still be enough to do it. With cigarettes for example it's different, since the self-cleaning process will clean and remove the remains of the cigarettes from the lungs fairly quickly unless the smoking is repeated over a long period of time and the system gets over-saturated and gradually breaks down.