Has reached its peak and has begun to drop a forecast released by the national cancer institutes surveillance epidemiology and end results program seer in april projected the total number of american male mesothelioma cases from to be approximately . All told more than products contained asbestos. At some point in our lives nearly all of us have been exposed to asbestos in the air we breathe and the water we drink from natural deposits in the earth and from the deterioration of asbestos products around us. Although it is suggested that the number of mesothelioma cases in the u. For more than years products containing asbestos remained unregulated and the manufacturers of those products continued to prosper knowing full well that many of the millions of workers who came into contact with their products would ultimately suffer as the result of their actions. See our page on mesothelioma risk factors.