Linking taconite to disease may be fleetingA comprehensive study
on why so many taconite workers are dying of a rare lung disease
is entering its final data-crunching stages with some results
expected later this year. By: Forum Communications, Lake County
News-Chronicle A comprehensive study on why so many taconite
workers are dying of a rare lung disease is entering its final
data-crunching stages with some results expected later this
year. But in an update provided last week, key researchers
confided that they may never find a link between a high rate of
fatal mesothelioma and the taconite iron ore industry – that the
high rate of mesothelioma deaths among Iron Rangers may have
been caused by exposure long ago and far away. “That’s one of
the possibilities. It could be we don’t see any relationship to
the workplace,” said Jeff Mandel, an associate professor at the
University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health and the lead
researcher in the study, which included workers from the
taconite processing facil