Asbestos spraying, an occupational and environmental hazard

Our plain-English summary of Asbestos spraying, an occupational and environmental hazard, by R. Barnes (The Medical Journal of Australia, 1976).

The study

• Author: R. Barnes
• Journal: The Medical Journal of Australia
• Published: 1976;2(16):599-602
• Type of article: Case report
• Cited by: 8 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 004360).

Abstract

This report describes the damage likely to be sustained by both workmen and the general population when asbestos is sprayed to buildings as an insulating and sound-proofing material.

PubMed has no abstract for this study. This is the authors' abstract, copied from the article.

In plain English

This 1976 report from the Hunter Region, Health Commission of New South Wales, described spraying chrysotile asbestos fibre, mixed with mineral oil and cement, onto buildings as insulation and fireproofing. In air tests in Sydney in late 1972, the author reported 80 fibres per cubic centimetre near the operator's breathing zone and 15 at floor level near the machine. The maximum allowable concentration was 4 fibres per cubic centimetre. At none of the eight places visited did the sprayers' assistants wear a respirator. The author described three spray operators. A 33-year-old man with 10 years' work was certified as suffering from asbestosis. A second man, employed less than 3 years, was awarded compensation for asbestosis. A 60-year-old man with 7 years' work had fibrosis over two-thirds of his lung fields and was deemed 75% disabled. The author saw spray material blowing from a Sydney building site onto the street, and wrote that, without suggesting passers-by would develop asbestosis, this must raise the asbestos fibres they breathed in. The author concluded that the cases illustrate the disability that can result from asbestos spraying.

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: Descriptive report combining site inspections, air fibre measurements and three case reports
• Who was studied: Asbestos spray operators and their assistants at spraying sites in Sydney, New South Wales (eight places visited; tests in late 1972), plus three spray operators described as case histories
• Exposure: Sprayed chrysotile asbestos fibre mixed with small amounts of mineral oil and cement powder, applied to walls, ceilings and beams for insulation and fireproofing
• Main results:
  • Sydney tests in late 1972 at spraying operations ranged from 15 to 80 fibres per cubic centimetre; 80 was near the operator's breathing zone, 15 at floor level near the machine, and 5 at floor level 20 ft below the spray point. The 80 figure was 20 times the maximum allowable concentration.
  • The maximum allowable concentration was given as 4 fibres per cubic centimetre
  • At none of the eight places visited did the assistants wear a respirator, although dust counts near the mixing machine were four and five times the maximum allowable concentration
  • On five visits to building sites in Sydney and suburbs during 1972, no sprayers' assistants wore masks, and on two occasions the sprayers also had no masks
  • Case 1: a man aged 33 who had been a spray operator for 10 years was certified as suffering from asbestosis
  • Case 1 lung function: FEV1 2.0 litres against a predicted 4.7 litres
  • Case 2: a man employed in the industry for less than 3 years was awarded compensation for asbestosis
  • Case 2 lung function: VC 2.7 litres against a predicted 5.0 litres
  • Case 3: a man aged 60 who had worked 7 years as a spray operator over a 15-year period had micronodular fibrosis of two-thirds of his lung fields with extensive pleural thickening and calcification
  • Case 3 lung function: FEV1 1.4 litres (predicted 2.5 litres) and VC 1.7 litres (predicted 3.2 litres)
  • Case 3 was deemed 75% disabled
  • At one of two Sydney (Martin Place) buildings being fireproofed, asbestos spray material was blown onto the street below
  • The author stated that this was not to suggest passers-by would develop asbestosis, but that such contamination must raise the respired burden of asbestos fibres of everyone who walked by on those days
  • No vacuum cleaner was in use at the New South Wales building sites visited
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that the three cases illustrate the disability that can result from asbestos spraying, and that the long-term effects on the city population at large could only be a matter of surmise

Topics

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

Related studies

• Quantitative risk assessment of environmental hazards — S.L. Brown (1985)
• The hazard of asbestos — (1976)
• Epidemiology of environmental and occupational cancer — P. Boffetta (2004)
• Should asbestos in buildings be regulated on an environmental or occupational basis? — D.M. Hashimoto, T.A. Brennan, et al. (1991)
• Pleural mesothelioma and occupational and non-occupational asbestos exposure: a case-control study with quantitative risk assessment — D. Ferrante, D. Mirabelli, et al. (2016)
• Relationship of mortality to measures of environmental asbestos pollution in an asbestos textile factory — J. Peto, R. Doll, et al. (1985)

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