For the past 150 years. Asbestos has been widely used for many useful purposes and applications. Despite that even as long as we started using Asbestos, the amount of cases of medical illnesses and deaths caused by heavy exposure to it has been there all along.
The more common health diseases that are caused by Asbestos exposure are :
Malignant Mesothelioma  is a cancer that starts in cells in the linings of certain parts of the body, especially in the linings of the chest or abdomen. Typically appear several decades after an exposure to asbestos
Mesothelioma Claimed More Than 37,000 Lives in the United States From 1999 to 2013. The rate of mesotheliomas in the United States increased from the 1970s to the early 1990s, but since then it has leveled off and even gone down slightly.
Each year there are 2000 to 3000 new cases of Malignant Mesothelioma .
Lung Cancer is also another type of cancer which is caused by overblown exposure to Asbestos. National Cancer institute first confirmed that asbestos causes lung cancer in 1942. Most asbestos-related lung cancers take between 15 and 35 years to develop from the time of initial asbestos exposure.
Other causes of death has also occurred with the exposure of Asbestos as of 2013 deaths from asbestosis without mention of mesothelioma are around 477 (Asbestosis register 2013).
On average, 40 percent of pleural mesothelioma patients survive at least one year after starting treatment. By year five, survival drops to 8 percent. Research shows that men are exposed to asbestos more often. One study reported that 13.4 percent of women survive for five years after treatment, compared to only 4.5 percent of men.
It is very clear that no matter what studies are done. Asbestos exposure is dangerous and even sometimes the problems of it occurs around later of somebodies life. While the usage of Asbestos is unavoidable, minimizing the risks it brings is certainly doable with careful following of the regulations of the matter, lives that may have been lost might be saved.