The expression "like father, like son," has tragic poignancy for Tom O'Donnell.
His father died nine years ago at age 76 from lung cancer caused by asbestos.
The cause of death was not entirely surprising. He had worked for nearly 25 years at a now defunct Johns-Manville plant in eastern Toronto that was called a "world-class occupational health disaster" by a 1980s royal commission investigating the plant's use of asbestos.
Now the son, who is only 48, is dying of mesothelioma, a painful cancer whose only known cause is contact with asbestos.
Mr. O'Donnell's diagnosis might seem unusual, given that he never worked with the substance. But he is not the only one in his family to have been afflicted since his father died. An older sister and older brother succumbed to the same cancer, which affects the lining of the chest wall, in their 50s.
Medical authorities suspect Mr. O'Donnell and his siblings are victims of a seemingly innocuous asbestos exposure: traces of asbestos dust carried unknowingly home on their father's work clothes.
Those traces, a testament to the killing power of the mineral, provided enough of a dose to place his children in mortal peril decades later.
Mr. O'Donnell said his father was a loving man for whom "the kids came first" and he remembers him with fondness as "such a nice guy all around. There is not a bad thing you could say about that guy."
His father had no inkling that the asbestos he worked with was hazardous, and that unknowingly he had started a nightmare for his six children.
"He's up there," Mr. O'Donnell said, referring to heaven, "thinking all this work he did and raising the kids and we're dying because of what was on his clothes."
Cases such as Mr. O'Donnell's, once thought to be extremely rare, are starting to crop up more frequently in Canada. There are enough cases that they have been given the formal name of "bystanders," people who never worked with asbestos yet are at risk of its illnesses.
They are falling ill now because they were exposed during the 1960s and 1970s -- the peak years in Canada of asbestos use -- as children and spouses of asbestos workers. Because certain cancers have a decades-long latency period, the bystanders are only now starting to be seen in significant numbers.
The bystander cases hold a special cruelty. Many of those exposed to asbestos as children are dying young, robbed of far more years than were their fathers, who were exposed as adults and had a crack at reaching old age because of the latency period.
And despite their greater losses, there is little financial compensation. Because bystanders were not exposed in workplaces as employees, they are not eligible for redress under workers-compensation plans. Union efforts to have them included have failed.
Their only recourse is to sue the defunct companies where they were exposed to asbestos, but there are so many other asbestos victims that the settlements are generally puny, typically less than $1,000 for each year of lost life.
"It's a tragedy that this material could so adversely affect not just the wage earner's health, but the health of their family. It's pretty unique," said Jim Brophy, executive director of an occupational health clinic in Sarnia, Ont. He calls these cases "a major injustice."
There is no exact national figure on the number of bystanders, but it is in the hundreds and perhaps higher.
Mr. Brophy contends that Canada, because it continues to mine and promote the use of asbestos abroad, is one of the few industrialized countries that has no national registry of workers with asbestos-related illnesses, primarily mesothelioma, lung cancer and asbestosis; even less information exists on the spouses and children suffering from indirect exposures.
"We don't keep track of this stuff. It's a huge public-health issue," Mr. Brophy said.
