Authors' response to Finkelstein's letter to the editor regarding our recent review of ambient airborne asbestos concentrations (Abelmann et al., 2015)

Our plain-English summary of Authors' response to Finkelstein's letter to the editor regarding our recent review of ambient airborne asbestos concentrations (Abelmann et al., 2015), by A. Abelmann, M.E. Glynn, J.S. Pierce, et al (Inhalation Toxicology, 2016).

The study

• Authors: A. Abelmann, M.E. Glynn, J.S. Pierce, P.K. Scott, D.J. Paustenbach
• Journal: Inhalation Toxicology
• Published: 2016;28(13):581-582
• Type of article: Letter, Comment
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This is a letter to the editor, not a new study. The authors, from the consulting firm Cardno ChemRisk, replied to a 2016 letter by Finkelstein criticizing their 2015 review of historical outdoor airborne asbestos concentrations in the United States. On the median, they said an alternative way of estimating it was used for two of the 23 medians in the paper's main text, neither of which was discussed in the abstract. They said they included only outdoor samples taken with no known or potential emission source nearby, so most data from Baxter et al. (1983) were left out. TEM data from Chesson et al. (1985) were left out because they covered all fiber lengths. For Sawyer (1977) they used a mean because the underlying data were unavailable. They defended using the reverse Kaplan–Meier method rather than the negative binomial distribution, noting that the log-normal distribution did not fit their data. The authors concluded that Finkelstein's claims were easily addressed. The letter states that the firm has been engaged by companies involved in asbestos litigation and that two authors have served as litigation experts.

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: the authors' reply to a critical letter about their own 2015 review. It reports no new data.
• Who was studied: No study population. The letter defends the authors' 2015 analysis of published and unpublished literature on historical ambient airborne asbestos concentrations in the United States (1960s to 2000s).
• Exposure: Ambient (outdoor) airborne asbestos away from known emission sources. Fiber types are not specified. The data were measured by PCM, TEM and SEM.
• Main results:
  • The authors said the alternative way of estimating the median (reporting the minimum detected concentration) was used in two of the 23 estimated medians in the main text of their paper. Neither of these was discussed in the abstract.
  • Most Baxter et al. (1983) data came from samples collected near naturally occurring asbestos deposits, mining operations and other point sources. These data did not meet the inclusion criteria and were not used.
  • TEM and SEM data from Chesson et al. (1985) were not used because they were reported for all fiber lengths.
  • For Sawyer (1977) and a few other studies, the underlying data could not be accessed, so the mean concentration was used.
  • Where no limit of detection was provided, the authors assigned a limit of detection of 0.001 f/cc rather than zero.
  • The authors said parametric distributions such as the log-normal did not fit their data satisfactorily. This was part of their reason for using the reverse Kaplan–Meier estimator.
  • Declaration of interest (not a finding): the authors' firm has been engaged by companies involved in asbestos-related litigation.
  • Declaration of interest (not a finding): two of the authors, Pierce and Paustenbach, have served as experts in asbestos-related litigation.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that Finkelstein's claims could be easily addressed using information already in their paper or in the referenced studies.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The authors acknowledged that PCM results include both asbestos and non-asbestos fibers, and said their 2015 paper notes this.
  • Summary (mean) data were used for some studies instead of individual measurements. The authors said these made up a small portion of the dataset and any impact would have been minimal.

Related studies

• Response to Letter to the Editor Regarding "Ambient Asbestos Fiber Concentrations and Long-Term Trends in Pleural Mesothelioma Incidence Between Urban and Rural Areas in the United States (1973-2012)" by Finkelstein — K.A. Keeton, M.E. Glynn, et al. (2018)
• Response to a letter to the editor by Dr. Murray M. Finkelstein regarding the article by Finley et al. (2012) — B.L. Finley, J.S. Pierce, et al. (2013)
• Author's response to: "Letter to the Editor" regarding content of "Mesothelioma from asbestos exposures: Epidemiologic patterns and impact in the United States" by R. A. Lemen, Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B 2016; 19: 250-265 — (2017)
• Historical ambient airborne asbestos concentrations in the United States - an analysis of published and unpublished literature (1960s-2000s) — A. Abelmann, M.E. Glynn, et al. (2015)
• Response to Murray M. Finkelstein, letter to the editor re Bernstein et al: Health risk of chrysotile revisited. Crit Rev Toxicol, 2013; 43(2): 154-183 — D. Bernstein, J. Dunnigan, et al. (2013)
• Response to Letter to the Editor regarding Franzblau et al., Asbestos-containing materials in abandoned residential dwellings in Detroit, from Prof. Arthur Frank, MD, PhD — A. Franzblau, A.H. Demond, et al. (2020)

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