Asbestos mining and occupational disease in Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, 1915-98

Our plain-English summary of Asbestos mining and occupational disease in Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, 1915-98, by J. McCulloch (History Workshop Journal, 2003).

The study

• Author: J. McCulloch
• Journal: History Workshop Journal
• Published: 2003:131-52
• Type of article: Historical article
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This article was a history of chrysotile (white asbestos) mining in Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe from 1915 to 1998. It focused on the Shabanie and Gaths (Mashaba) mines, owned for most of that period by the British company Turner & Newall (T&N). The author drew on Zimbabwe's National Archives, T&N's internal archive, and interviews with miners and managers at Shabanie in 1998. The author reported that T&N did no occupational-health research at these mines, so the author extrapolated from T&N's Havelock mine in Swaziland. There, a 1978 survey of 271 workers found 23% had asbestosis, and 54% of mill workers did. A 1981 T&N report found serious dust problems at Shabanie and Mashaba, judged against the then-current UK limit of two fibres per millilitre. A 1938 government commission recorded dust of up to 800 particles per cubic centimetre but reported little disease. Interviewed workers said they learned of the danger from sick colleagues, not from the company. The author concluded that official claims of no disease were contradicted by the archive and by miners' testimony. The author noted that Zimbabwe's National Archives on the industry were incomplete and unreliable, with gaps widening between 1965 and 1980.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Historical study based on archival records (Zimbabwe National Archives and the Turner & Newall company archive) and oral-history interviews
• Who was studied: Workers at Turner & Newall's Shabanie and Gaths (Mashaba) asbestos mines in Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, 1915 to 1998, including miners interviewed in 1998 who had each worked at least twenty years
• Exposure: Chrysotile (white asbestos) dust from underground and open-cast mining, and especially from dry milling and bagging
• Main results:
  • No disease-incidence data existed for Shabanie or Gaths. The author therefore cited a 1978 T&N-commissioned survey of 271 workers at Havelock mine (Swaziland): 23% of employees had asbestosis, and 54% of mill workers had it.
  • A March 1981 T&N report on dust, measured against the UK limit of two fibres per millilitre, found most of the Havelock mill complex well above that figure and serious problems at Shabanie and Mashaba.
  • The 1938 government commission found dust levels in the grading mills of up to 800 particles per cubic centimetre, yet concluded the mill was spacious and airy.
  • None of the long-serving Shabanie workers interviewed in 1998 had learned of the risk from the company. Their knowledge came from seeing fellow workers fall sick or die.
  • The author cited a late-1980s study by Baloyi of 178 black males from Shabanie and 119 from Gaths. It found a loss of vital capacity among 10% of men with more than ten years' exposure.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that the official position that there was no disease at the mines was contradicted by the T&N archive and by other evidence. The author also concluded that the company knew more about the risks than its employees or regulators and kept that knowledge to itself.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The Zimbabwe National Archives holdings on the industry are incomplete and unreliable.
  • Gaps in the archival record widen between 1965 and 1980, the UDI period, when production peaked.
  • There were no disease data for Shabanie or Gaths, so rates had to be extrapolated from T&N's other operations.
  • Miners' views were tempered by the fact that most workers were migrants who died out of sight.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Occupational Disease.

Related studies

• Asbestos mining in Southern Africa, 1893-2002 — J. McCulloch (2003)
• Chrysotile asbestos and health in Zimbabwe: I. Analysis of miners and millers compensated for asbestos-related diseases since independence (1980) — M.R. Cullen, R.S. Baloyi (1991)
• Occupational respiratory disease in mining — M.H. Ross, J. Murray (2004)
• Chrysotile asbestos and health in Zimbabwe: II. Health status survey of active miners and millers — M.R. Cullen, L. Lopez-Carrillo, et al. (1991)
• Prediction of Asbestos-Related Diseases (ARDs) and Chrysotile Asbestos Exposure Concentrations in Asbestos-Cement (AC) Manufacturing Factories in Zimbabwe — B. Mutetwa, D. Moyo, et al. (2022)
• Occupational exposures and lung cancer risk among Minnesota taconite mining workers — E.M. Allen, B.H. Alexander, et al. (2015)

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