A review of the health effects of ingested asbestos.

Occupational studies indicate that a human health hazard may exist for ingested asbestos since the death rates due to digestive system cancers are elevated in asbestos workers. This finding may be related to the swallowing of asbestos that was inhaled and cleared from the respiratory system via the respiratory clearance mechanism. Published animal ingestion experiments have serious shortcomings in their design and execution which make their interpretation very difficult. Animal ingestion and human autopsy studies suggest that asbestos fibers may penetrate the digestive tract and migrate to other locations in the body.