Canada and France fall out over the risks of asbestos

Our plain-English summary of Canada and France fall out over the risks of asbestos, by D. Butler, D. Spurgeon (Nature, 1997).

The study

• Authors: D. Butler, D. Spurgeon
• Journal: Nature
• Published: 1997;385(6615):379
• Type of article: News
• Cited by: 2 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This is a short news article from the journal Nature, not a research study. It reported no new data. It described a dispute in early 1997 between the Canadian federal government and health experts. Canada, described as the world's largest asbestos exporter, had asked France to rethink its recent asbestos ban. The Canadian government argued that a report by a Royal Society of Canada (RSC) panel undermined an earlier report by INSERM, France's national biomedical research agency, and said INSERM had overestimated the threat of asbestos to the French population. The article reported that the RSC panel agreed with much of the INSERM report, including its conclusion that all forms of asbestos are carcinogenic. It also reported that some RSC panel members distanced themselves from the political use of their report, and that three of four outside peer reviewers criticized how quickly the RSC report was produced. In 1994, Quebec accounted for 524,000 of the 531,000 tons of asbestos produced in Canada, and about 6 per cent went to France.

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: news article (journalism reporting a policy and scientific dispute; not a research study)
• Who was studied: No study population. The article reported on a dispute between the Canadian federal government and Canadian and other health experts over France's asbestos ban.
• Exposure: Asbestos in general. The article reported that the RSC panel agreed with INSERM's conclusion that all forms of asbestos are carcinogenic.
• Main results:
  • Canada was described as the world's largest exporter of asbestos.
  • A Canadian government statement said INSERM had overestimated the real threat of asbestos to the French population.
  • The article reported that the RSC panel agreed with much of the INSERM report, including its conclusion that all forms of asbestos are carcinogenic.
  • Some members of the RSC panel distanced themselves from the political use made of the report. The RSC president said the panel's conclusions say nothing about the validity of the French ban.
  • Three of the four external academics who peer-reviewed the RSC report criticized the fact that it was produced within a few weeks.
  • Asbestos represented 7 per cent of Quebec's exports. In 1994 Quebec accounted for 524,000 of the 531,000 tons produced in Canada, worth some C$233 million (US$179 million). Canada exported 6 per cent of this to France.
  • The Canadian prime minister said he intended to fight the ban at the World Trade Organization.

Related studies

• Canada accused of hypocrisy over asbestos exports — T. Kirby (2010)
• Occupations and industries in France at high risk for pleural mesothelioma: A population-based case-control study (1998-2002) — P. Rolland, C. Gramond, et al. (2010)
• An estimate of cancers attributable to occupational exposures in France — P. Boffetta, P. Autier, et al. (2010)
• Cancers in France in 2015 attributable to occupational exposures — C. Marant Micallef, K.D. Shield, et al. (2019)
• Computer modeling of population exposure to a carcinogen: the example of asbestos and mesothelioma mortality in France — A. Banaei, B. Auvert, et al. (2000)
• The rise and fall in incidence of malignant mesothelioma from a British Naval Dockyard, 1979-1999 — A.K. Hilliard, J.K. Lovett, et al. (2003)

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