Danger of vermiculite

I received an interesting email today from a site on mesothelioma. As many of you know, mesothelioma is a type of lung cancer. My father died in August of lung cancer, so of course this interested me. My father was raised on a tobacco farm, and smoked most of his life. During his examination with the pulmonologist, he was asked if he had worked around asbestos. He had not, but I was surprised to find out from the email I received, vermiculite has been associated with asbestos. I have asked Joshua, who sent me the email, to comment on this at this site.
You can read more at http://www.mesothelioma.com/ to read how vermiculite is mined near asbestos.