Asbestos Information Committee advertisements

Three short television advertisements made by the Asbestos Information Committee, London; the closing card gives its P.O. Box address in London W1A. The first covers brake linings, the second fire protection with asbestos insulation board, and the third cement reinforced with asbestos fibre in buildings. The print has faded to red. All three end with the same lines and an address to write to for the Asbestos Safety Code. The annotated version adds our notes.

This is our annotated copy: short notes on screen say what the advertisements leave out. The advertisements themselves are shown in full, without alteration.

Who made these

The Asbestos Information Committee was set up by the British asbestos industry in 1968 to speak for it on asbestos and
health. Its own papers say it was "supported by BBA Group Ltd, Cape Industries Ltd, Eternit Bld. Products Ltd, Turner &
Newall Ltd, and other British asbestos companies" (1977 commentary). Its 1968 magazine advertisement
(Punch, 1968) said life without asbestos would be "far
more hazardous." In 1976 a member of the House of Lords complained that the Committee was still handing out a leaflet
called "Asbestos—Public not at Risk" (Hansard, House of Lords, 11 May 1976). Johns-Manville's London office attended
its meetings (J-M memo, March 1975). It later became the Asbestos Information Centre, and was dissolved in 2011.

What the advertisements leave out

The spots are about the uses of asbestos. The one sentence about its dangers, "it needs to be used carefully," never
says what the danger is. By the time they were made, the industry knew, and had known for years:

• that asbestos dust scars the lungs (asbestosis). Britain had regulated asbestos factories for it since 1931, after
  Merewether and
  Price's survey;
• that it causes lung cancer: Richard Doll's
  study of Turner & Newall's own Rochdale workers, published in 1955, found 11 lung-cancer deaths where 0.8 were
  expected among men who had worked there 20 years or more, a risk about ten times that of the general population;
• that it causes mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the chest and abdomen, which can follow small or brief
  exposures decades later (Wagner, 1960), including in the families of workers and people
  living near asbestos factories: in London, Newhouse and Thompson (1965) found that 40 of 76 mesothelioma patients had
  worked with asbestos or lived with someone who did, and that many of the rest had lived within half a mile of an
  asbestos factory;
• that the men who installed asbestos products, not only those who made them, were dying of these diseases
  (Selikoff, Churg
  and Hammond, 1964).

Spot by spot

Brakes. The linings were made of asbestos, and the dust they wore into still held asbestos fibre. Mechanics blew
it out of brake drums with compressed air and swept it from garage floors. In 1976 Irving Selikoff's group at Mount
Sinai measured the asbestos in the air during brake maintenance and repair (Rohl and others, Environmental
Research, 1976). Britain stopped the fitting of asbestos brake linings in 1999, and banned chrysotile, the last kind
still allowed, that November.

Fire. Asbestos insulation board, the product this spot praises, was usually made with amosite (brown asbestos),
one of the two kinds Britain banned first: the Asbestos (Prohibitions) Regulations 1985 stopped its import, supply and
use from 1 January 1986. The board is softer and far less dense than asbestos-cement and gives off much more fibre
when cut, drilled or broken, so in Britain today only licensed contractors may work on it. It was used in schools,
offices and homes, where much of it remains. Firefighters, the men the spot shows at work, are among those exposed
when damaged board and lagging burn.

Asbestos-cement. Sheets and pipes of asbestos-cement were among the commonest asbestos products in Britain. They
gave off little fibre while whole, but workers who cut, drilled and sanded them breathed the dust, and old sheets
weather and crack. The roofs in the spot's aerial shots are the kind still being taken down today, under the Control
of Asbestos Regulations.

"It needs to be used carefully"

In its own 1977 answer to the campaigner Nancy Tait, the Committee said that "most of the fibres breathed in are also
breathed out or dealt with by the body's rejection mechanism," and that chrysotile was "probably only likely to be a
cause of mesothelioma where exposure has been particularly heavy." In 1977 the International Agency for Research on
Cancer named asbestos, of every kind, as a cause of cancer in people, and found no level of exposure that could be
called safe: "it is not possible to assess whether there is a level of exposure in humans below which an increased
risk of cancer would not occur." Britain banned crocidolite and amosite from 1986 and all asbestos in 1999. Asbestos
still kills around 5,000 people a year in Great Britain, according to the Health and Safety Executive, from exposure
decades ago.

About this copy

Our copy is a transfer of a print from Johns-Manville's own film archive (box 04-03387), shown in full, 2:32 long. Three television advertisements. The print has faded to red; the colour is as found.

Transcript

A machine transcript of the soundtrack, not yet checked against the film; names and technical words may be wrong.

Modern transport depends on fuel, on tyres, and on asbestos. Asbestos provides the stopping power for modern braking systems, the stopping power modern transport needs. In this, as in so many ways, asbestos serves us well. But it needs to be used carefully. For information about the Asbestos Safety Code, write to this address. Asbestos protects us from fire. fire.

When a fire gets out of control, asbestos can stop it. And when buildings burn, asbestos insulation board can slow the spread of flames, giving firefighters the extra time that can mean the difference between life and death. In this, as in so many ways, asbestos serves us well. But it needs to be used carefully. For information about the Asbestos Safety Code, write to this address. What do these buildings have in common?

For one thing, a remarkable building material. It's light, strong, durable, weather and corrosion resistant, versatile, and sometimes even beautiful. It's not new, it's been around for over half a century. It's cement reinforced with asbestos fibre. In this, as in so many ways, asbestos serves us well. But it needs to be used carefully.

For information about the Asbestos Safety Code, write to this address.