Tremolite toxicity

RTECS. 1999a. Tremolite asbestos. Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. April 19, 1999. 

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) prepared this chemical-specific health consultation to provide support for public health decisions regarding Libby, Montana, and other locations where tremolite asbestos and related asbestos can be found. This document ... 

Important determinations of asbestos toxicity include exposure concentration, duration, fiber dimensions, and fiber durability. There is animal and human evidence that long fibers are retained in the lungs for longer periods than short fibers and that amphibole fibers, such as tremolite asbestos, are retained longer than chrysotile fibers. Short and long fibers may contribute to the pathogenesis of inflammation, fibrosis, and cancer in humans, but their relative importance is uncertain. 

Most toxicological studies focus on the toxicity or solubility behavior of a particular sample of a given mineral such as chrysotile, tremolite, or talc. They do not tend to examine the role that variations in morphology, trace element content, accessory minerals, and other characteristics between the same mineral from different samples in the same geologic locality, and between samples from different geologic localities, can play in in vitro and in vivo biodurability, and therefore toxicity. These parameters have been demonstrated to play important roles in the rate at which other minerals, such as sulfides, weather under environmental conditions (see summary in Plumlee, 1999), and so are also likely to be important for particle durability in vivo. 

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