Federal Asbestos Agencies: Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR),
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
Department of Health and Human Services

ATSDR is conducting a number of activities that will help to improve the state of the science for asbestos. Characterizing exposure and health risks for naturally occurring asbestos is the focus of site specific projects in El Dorado County, California and Ambler, Alaska. Under the National Asbestos Exposure Review (NAER) project, ATSDR and its state health department partners are conducting a variety of studies to assess exposures and potential health impacts at over 200 sites across the U.S. that received and processed asbestos-contaminated vermiculite from the Libby, Montana mine. This broad effort encompasses evaluations of past and present exposure pathways at 28 sites, reviews of health statistics for communities surrounding~100 vermiculite sites, a community exposure investigation for a processing site in Minnesota, a disease progression study for a cohort of workers from a vermiculite processing site in Ohio, and pilot mesothelioma surveillance studies in New Jersey, New York, and Wisconsin.

Courtesy of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency