Canada's asbestos legacy

Our plain-English summary of Canada's asbestos legacy, by W. Charney (International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 2007).

The study

• Author: W. Charney
• Journal: International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health
• Published: 2007;13(4):451
• Type of article: Comment, Letter
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This is a letter to the editor, not a research paper. The author, an occupational health advocate who had worked with the Asbestos Victims of Quebec, was responding to a report by Brophy and colleagues on asbestos in Canada. The author argued three things about Quebec: it had used more restrictive standards than international ones for diagnosing and compensating asbestos-related disease, it had not adopted the international "B" reading of x-rays, and it had relied on phase-contrast microscopy rather than transmission electron microscopy to measure asbestos in air. The author also described their own observations, giving few methods. In a 1987 pilot study, 12 miners from Quebec mining regions who had been declared healthy locally were taken to Boston for independent review. Over 60% had diagnoses of asbestos-related restrictive disease. Air samples the author took in the 1980s in some schools in the Laurentians exceeded international standards in all schools sampled. Some 1985 air samples in Thetford Mines contained asbestos levels 1,000 times higher than the U.S. EPA standard. The author concluded that Quebec's departure from international norms left workers and the public at high risk.

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• Design: Letter to the editor responding to a published report, describing the author's own unpublished observations
• Who was studied: 12 miners from the Thetford, Asbestos, Black Lake and Roberstonville (as printed) regions of Quebec in 1987, who had been declared healthy by local town clinics and the CSST. The letter also describes air samples from some schools in the Laurentians (1980s), the village of Thetford Mines (1985), and homes and soil in Quebec mining towns (2006).
• Exposure: Work in the asbestos mining and manufacturing industries, and airborne asbestos in schools, public buildings and mining towns. No fiber types are named.
• Main results:
  • Of the 12 miners declared healthy in Quebec and reviewed independently in Boston, over 60% had diagnoses of asbestos-related restrictive disease.
  • Air samples the author took in the 1980s in some schools in the Laurentians, analyzed by transmission electron microscopy, exceeded international standards in all schools sampled.
  • Some environmental air samples taken in 1985 on top of a movie theater in the center of Thetford Mines contained asbestos levels 1,000 times higher than the U.S. EPA standard.
  • In a 2006 study that had not yet been published, air samples in homes in Quebec mining towns exceeded safe levels, and soil samples in the towns showed, in most cases, heavy contamination.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that Quebec's opting out of international norms and standards had left both the occupational health of workers and the public health of Quebec citizens at high risk.

Topics

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

Related studies

• Canada's asbestos legacy at home and abroad — J.T. Brophy, M.M. Keith, et al. (2007)
• The legacy of World Trade Center dust — J.M. Samet, A.S. Geyh, et al. (2007)
• Asbestos in Canada: time to change our legacy — T. Dummer, C. Gotay (2015)
• Community air pollution in Canada: a review and predictions for the 1980s — D.V. Bates (1979)
• Exploratory sampling of asbestos in residences near Thetford Mines: the public health threat in Quebec — M. Marier, W. Charney, et al. (2007)
• Ambient air concentrations of asbestos fibers near the town of Asbestos, Québec — B. Singh, J.P. Thouez (1985)

Browse more research in International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, or return to medical research.