Asbestos: promotion or prohibition?

Our plain-English summary of Asbestos: promotion or prohibition?, by C.E. Forget (CMAJ, 1987).

The study

• Author: C.E. Forget
• Journal: CMAJ
• Published: 1987;137(10):874
• Type of article: Letter
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Free full text
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 004755).

In plain English

This is a letter to the editor, not a research study, and it reports no new data. Claude E. Forget, President of The Asbestos Institute in Montreal, wrote it in response to an editorial by Dr. David V. Bates (Can Med Assoc J 1987; 136: 107-109). The letter agreed with the editorial's main recommendation: when asbestos is promoted, users in importing countries should be told of its potential dangers and trained in dust control and in environmental and health monitoring. It stated that the Canadian government and the Asbestos Institute endorsed this approach. The letter objected to other parts of the editorial. It argued that Bates left out later international rules based on controlled use, and that Sweden still imported asbestos for products considered essential. It also said that some fibrous substitutes were viewed with increasing suspicion. The letter favoured a controlled-use approach to asbestos. It called the implication that Canada's economic interest overrode concern for workers' and consumers' health unfair and incorrect.

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: letter to the editor responding to an editorial (opinion; no study data)
• Exposure: asbestos use and policy in general (controlled use versus bans); no fiber types, products, jobs or doses are specified
• The authors' conclusion: The author endorsed informing and training users in importing countries and favoured a controlled-use approach. The author stated that implying Canada's economic interest overrides concern for the health of workers and consumers is unfair and incorrect.

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