Awkward medicolegal problems in asbestos workers

Our plain-English summary of Awkward medicolegal problems in asbestos workers, by A.J. Robertson (Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1978).

The study

• Author: A.J. Robertson
• Journal: Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine
• Published: 1978;71(12):864
• Type of article: Editorial
• Cited by: 2 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 002145).

In plain English

This 1978 article was a short commentary by a consultant physician, based on a contribution to the Section of Occupational Medicine. It did not report a new study. The author discussed problems in British compensation cases for asbestos workers. The author urged doctors to take full histories, for example asking a housewife with mesothelioma about her husband's job. For casual lagging workers with many past employers, the author suggested sharing responsibility according to years worked with each firm, leaving out the last ten years for asbestosis and the last twenty years for mesothelioma. The author argued that evidence of exposure to asbestos is quite different from asbestosis, and that pleural plaques could not be an automatic cause for compensation. Citing an earlier study by Edge and Choudhury (1978), the author noted that thirty-nine people had been diagnosed during life, but fewer than half of their dependants were then receiving benefit. The author concluded that improved diagnosis had not been matched by improved facilities for obtaining compensation.

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 (opinion article) based on a contribution to the Section of Occupational Medicine; no original data
• Who was studied: No study population; the article discusses compensation cases for asbestos workers before British courts
• Exposure: Asbestos exposure in general, with examples given by the author: sack repair work, a shipyard plumber's dusty clothes washed at home, and casual lagging work with many employers
• Main results:
  • The author's view (not a study finding): a housewife with mesothelioma should be asked about her husband's occupation
  • The author's suggestion (not a study finding): apportion responsibility by years of employment with each firm, excluding the last ten years for asbestosis
  • The author's suggestion: exposure within the last twenty years could be excluded when apportioning for mesotheliomas
  • The author's view: evidence of exposure to asbestos is different from asbestosis
  • The author's view: pleural plaques could not be an automatic cause for compensation
  • Cited from an earlier study by Edge & Choudhury (1978), not this article's own data: a positive diagnosis was made during life in thirty-nine subjects, but less than half of the dependants were receiving benefit
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that improvement in diagnosis had not been matched by improved facilities for obtaining compensation, and that much could be done to help this

Topics

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

Related studies

• Awkward medicolegal problems in asbestos-induced disease. Problems in law — C. Clothier (1978)
• Asbestos problems yet to explode in Korea — D. Paek (2003)
• Under-reporting of compensable mesothelioma in Alberta — M.W. Cree, M. Lalji, et al. (2009)
• Mesothelioma incidence surveillance systems and claims for workers' compensation. Epidemiological evidence and prospects for an integrated framework — A. Marinaccio, A. Scarselli, et al. (2012)
• Surveillance of mesothelioma and workers' compensation in British Columbia, Canada — T.L. Kirkham, M.W. Koehoorn, et al. (2011)
• Workers' compensation for nonmalignant asbestos-related lung disease — C. Nevitt, W. Daniell, et al. (1994)

Browse more research in Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, or return to medical research.