Asbestos products, hazards, and regulation

Our plain-English summary of Asbestos products, hazards, and regulation, by B. Castleman (International Journal of Health Services, 2006).

The study

• Author: B. Castleman
• Journal: International Journal of Health Services
• Published: 2006;36(2):295-307
• Cited by: 3 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Abstract

Asbestos is present in the United States in a multitude of products used in past decades, and in some products that continue to be imported and domestically produced. We have limited information on the hazards posed by some of these individual products and no information at all on most of them. Legal discovery of corporate documents has shed some light on the use of asbestos in some products and exposures from asbestos in others, sometimes adding considerably to what was in the published literature. But liability concerns have motivated corporate efforts to curtail governmental public health guidance on long-recognized hazards to workers. Liability considerations have also evidently led, in the case of asbestos brake linings, to the support of publication in the scientific literature of review articles denying in the 21st century what had been widely accepted and established in health policy in the 20th century. This report is an effort to illustrate the suppression and emergence of scientific knowledge in a climate of regulation and liability. Examples discussed are vinyl-asbestos flooring, feminine hygiene products, automotive friction materials, and asbestos contamination of other minerals such as talc and vermiculite. Global efforts to deal with the hazards of continuing marketing of asbestos products are also discussed.

In plain English

This article was a commentary by the author, drawing on published studies, corporate documents from lawsuits, regulatory records and a search of U.S. patents. It did not report a new medical study. It discussed vinyl-asbestos flooring, feminine hygiene products, brakes and clutches, and asbestos contamination of vermiculite and talc. In 1975, Congoleum's monitoring of a flooring removal job that workers said involved "much less sanding than normal" recorded 56.1 and 36.7 f/cc in two 19-minute personal samples. The author said these were not published or reported to the government. A patent search found patents naming asbestos as a possible ingredient of tampons and sanitary napkins. The author stated there was no confirmation that asbestos was ever used in such products sold to the public. On brakes, the author described a comment sent to the EPA by James Leigh. Among Australian mesothelioma cases recorded in 1986–2001 for which exposure-history information was provided, 73 people had worked in brake lining repair, and for 43 this was the only identified asbestos source. The author concluded that liability concerns had motivated corporate efforts to curtail public health guidance on long-recognized hazards to workers.

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: Commentary and narrative review (policy essay) using published literature, corporate documents from legal discovery, regulatory records and a U.S. patent search; not an original medical study
• Who was studied: No study population. The article covers asbestos-containing products used or sold in the United States, with some discussion of other countries and of the international campaign to ban asbestos
• Exposure: Vinyl-asbestos flooring and asbestos felt backings; brake and clutch (friction) products, described as made with chrysotile; tremolite asbestos in vermiculite (Libby, Montana) and talc; asbestos named in feminine hygiene product patents
• Main results:
  • Congoleum's 1975 monitoring of workers removing flooring, in a job the workers said involved much less sanding than normal, recorded exposures of 56.1 and 36.7 f/cc in personal samples taken over 19-minute periods. The author stated that nothing was published or reported to the government about these high exposures from sanding off asbestos felt.
  • A search of U.S. patents identified patents (17 are listed in Table 1, dated 1959 to 1998) naming asbestos as a possible ingredient of tampons and sanitary napkins. The author stated there was no confirmation that asbestos was used in such products made for the public.
  • A 1975 NIOSH Hazard Alert, as described by the author, estimated that about 900,000 U.S. workers were regularly exposed to asbestos in brake servicing. It reported exposures of 10.5 f/cc for blow-out with compressed air and 37.3 f/cc for beveling of brake linings.
  • In a comment to the EPA, James Leigh (Australian Mesothelioma Register) reported on mesothelioma cases recorded in 1986–2001 for which exposure-history information was provided. Among these cases, 73 people had worked in brake lining repair, and for 43 of them this was the only identified asbestos source.
  • In the same comment, Leigh calculated that the lifetime mesothelioma risk of vehicle mechanics was 55 times the background risk.
  • The author stated, without giving a source in the text, that 30 percent of the 9,000 Libby residents had X-ray changes consistent with asbestosis.
  • The author stated that about 40 countries had banned asbestos.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that liability concerns had motivated corporate efforts to curtail government public health guidance on long-recognized hazards to workers, including support for publications denying the hazard of asbestos brake work.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • Patents do not show that the patented products were ever actually made or sold.
  • Hazard information exists for only a few individual asbestos products and none for most.
  • It is not possible to tell what share of imported friction materials contain asbestos.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Discovery, Brake Lining, Talc, vermiculite.

Related studies

• United States regulations for control of asbestos exposure — E.M. Fenner (1979)
• Minimising health hazards associated with derogated products and in-situ materials containing chrysotile contaminated with amphibole asbestos fibres — R.M. Howie (1999)
• History and evolution of warning labels for automotive friction products — L.M. Kopelovich, K.A. Thuett, et al. (2014)
• Environmental and occupational health hazards associated with the presence of asbestos in brake linings and pads (1900 to present): A "state-of-the-art" review — S.S. Paskal (2004)
• Asbestos law: victims' rights and industry's reaction — K. Asch (1979)
• Nanoparticles, human health hazard and regulation — A. Seaton, L. Tran, et al. (2010)

Browse more research in International Journal of Health Services, or return to medical research.