If you believe your home or workplace is infested with asbestos, you cannot check yourself. That is because you can only see asbestos fibers with a special microscope. Further asbestos testing must be done in a laboratory to confirm that the material is asbestos. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires that labs analyze the samples with polarized light microscopy which while indentify the type of asbestos and the amount of content. Most asbestos samples taken from buildings are chrysotile, which accounts for almost 95 percent of all asbestos in U.S. buildings. The two other common types of asbestos are amosite and crocidolite. Asbestos is linked to lung cancer and mesothelioma, which is entirely caused by asbestos exposure, health officials say. However, anyone exposed to asbestos may not show signs of illness up to 30 years after they were exposes. The EPA banned all new uses of asbestos in 1989 because of the health concerns.