Asbestos-related disease

Our plain-English summary of Asbestos-related disease, by A.B. Morrison (Canadian Medical Association Journal, 1979).

The study

• Author: A.B. Morrison
• Journal: Canadian Medical Association Journal
• Published: 1979;120(10):1216
• Type of article: Letter
• Read it: PubMed · Free full text
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 002093).

In plain English

This item is a short letter to the editor, not a research study, and it reported no new data. The author, an assistant deputy minister in the Health Protection Branch of Canada's Department of National Health and Welfare, wrote that a recent study by Selikoff had revealed an increased risk of asbestos-related disease among former United States shipyard workers, including tradesmen who worked alongside asbestos workers. The letter gave no figures from that study and cited it through a paper by McDonald and McDonald. According to the author, the study prompted the United States surgeon general to alert more than half a million physicians about probable asbestos-related disease in people employed in shipbuilding during World War II. The letter stated an estimate, without naming its source, that more than 10 000 shipyard and former shipyard workers in Canada had probably been exposed to asbestos dust. The author urged all physicians, not only those in dockland areas, to watch for asbestos-related disease in these workers and to ask patients about their former occupations.

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 (no original study or data)
• Who was studied: No population was studied. The letter refers to current and former shipyard workers in Canada, estimated (source not given) at more than 10 000 people who had probably been exposed to asbestos dust.
• Exposure: asbestos dust in shipyards, both among people who worked directly with asbestos and tradesmen who worked alongside asbestos workers; no fiber type is named in the letter
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that physicians everywhere, not only in dockland areas, should be alert to possible asbestos-related disease in current and former shipyard workers, and that asking about former occupations is essential to diagnosis.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Asbestosis.

Related studies

• Asbestos and other fiber-related diseases of the lungs and pleura. Distribution and determinants in exposed populations — M.R. Becklake (1991)
• Asbestos-related disease among sheet-metal workers. Preliminary results of the National Sheet Metal Worker Asbestos Disease Screening Program — L.S. Welch, D. Michaels, et al. (1991)
• Fiber burden and patterns of asbestos-related disease in workers with heavy mixed amosite and chrysotile exposure — A. Churg, S. Vedal (1994)
• Asbestos related disease in Barrow-in-Furness — J.R. Edge (1976)
• Radiographic search for asbestos-related disease in a naval shipyard — J.S. Felton (1979)
• Asbestos-related disease in Bangladeshi ship breakers: a pilot study — M.N. Courtice, P.A. Demers, et al. (2011)

Browse more research in Canadian Medical Association Journal, or return to medical research.