China and the US: asbestos in common

Our plain-English summary of China and the US: asbestos in common, by A.L. Frank (International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 2012).

The study

• Author: A.L. Frank
• Journal: International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health
• Published: 2012;18(3):179-80
• Type of article: Editorial, Comment
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This article was an editorial, an opinion piece, not a research study, and it reported no new data. The author commented on asbestos use in China and the United States. The editorial introduced a review of asbestos use and asbestos-related disease in China by Wang and colleagues, published in the same journal issue. The author stated that over 50 countries had banned asbestos entirely, while both the United States and China still allowed asbestos products. The author wrote that China used a bit over 600 000 tons of asbestos per year, rivaling United States use of some 775 000 tons a year in the early 1970s. The author noted that asbestos disease had declined in countries that stopped using asbestos. According to the author, disease data collection in China had been spotty at best, and China had no current useful compensation system for workers made ill. The author also noted that the US EPA's 1989 asbestos ban was overturned by a federal court two years later. The author concluded that, without a concerted effort to measure asbestos-related disease in China and India, its toll may never truly be known.

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: Editorial (opinion piece); no original research or data
• Who was studied: No people were studied. The editorial discusses asbestos use in China and the United States and introduces a review by Wang et al. in the same issue.
• Exposure: Continued use of asbestos, including chrysotile (the serpentine form) and the amphiboles, in China and the United States
• Main results:
  • The author stated that over 50 countries have totally banned asbestos, while the United States and China continue to allow asbestos products
  • The author stated that China uses a bit over 600 000 tons of asbestos per year, rivaling United States use of some 775 000 tons annually in the early 1970s
  • The author stated that asbestos disease has declined in countries that discontinued its use
  • The author stated that collection of disease data in China has been spotty at best
  • The author stated that China has no current useful system of compensation for workers made ill by asbestos
  • The author stated that the US EPA's 1989 asbestos ban was overturned by a federal court two years later
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that unless there is a concerted effort to determine the extent of asbestos-related disease in China and other industrializing countries such as India, the toll asbestos will take there may never truly be known, noting that the absence of data does not mean the absence of disease.

Topics

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

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