Mesothelioma and asbestos exposure in Boston

For well over a century, the Charlestown Navy Yard built, repaired and outfitted Navy ships on the Boston waterfront. Steam propulsion meant miles of insulated piping plus boilers, pumps and turbines, and through most of the twentieth century that insulation was made with asbestos. Pipefitters, boilermakers, insulators and electricians worked side by side in cramped engine rooms, so even workers who never cut insulation themselves breathed the dust that others raised. Sailors aboard ships under repair in Boston faced the same conditions, and many carried that exposure with them to sea. The yard closed as a Navy facility in the 1970s, but the long latency of mesothelioma means its workforce is still being diagnosed.

Away from the waterfront, Boston's heating plants, power stations, hospitals, universities and triple-decker neighborhoods relied on asbestos pipe covering, boiler insulation, floor tile and plaster. Maintenance workers, steamfitters and renovation crews disturbed these materials for decades, often long after new installations had stopped, because old insulation stayed in place until someone removed it. Boiler rooms in older institutional buildings were especially dusty places to work. Family members were exposed too, because dust came home on work clothes that were shaken out and washed with the household laundry. That is why some Boston-area patients who never set foot in a shipyard or boiler room still have a documented exposure history.