The actual number of deaths caused by malignant mesothelioma is very hard to obtain in the United States. This is because Federal health officials had not begun tracking or recognizing mesothelioma as a cause of death until 1999. This means that a large number of deaths related to asbestos and mesothelioma were misdiagnosed and classified under another disease such as lung cancer, or any number of other respiratory diseases. Though our country has already lost a multitude of individuals from asbestos related deaths including malignant mesothelioma, we still have not peeked out on how many will eventually succumb to this insidious disease. Approximately ten thousand Americans die each year from asbestos related diseases and over twenty five hundred of them die from the many forms of malignant mesothelioma. Reports show that deaths from mesothelioma and from asbestos steadily increased from 1979 through 1998. In the years between 1979 and 2001 approximately forty three thousand Americans succumbed to asbestosis and mesothelioma.
Individuals that were exposed to asbestos during the 1960s and 1970s are only now showing signs of the disease or passing away because of it. The long latency period of up to fifty years means we won’t know the full devastation of our love affair with asbestos for a long time to come. Because mesothelioma is a more rare type of cancer as compared to such things as lung cancer, it is still often misdiagnosed. This means that even more people than officially documented are dying of asbestos related diseases such as malignant mesothelioma.