Commercial talc and talcosis

Our plain-English summary of Commercial talc and talcosis, by B. Weiss, E.A. Boettner (Archives of Environmental Health, 1967).

The study

• Authors: B. Weiss, E.A. Boettner
• Journal: Archives of Environmental Health
• Published: 1967;14(2):304-8
• Cited by: 23 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 001494).

In plain English

This article combined a survey of minerals in US commercial talc deposits with a review of earlier studies of talcosis, a lung disease of talc workers. The authors collected ore samples in mines, and dust and product samples in mills, in New York and Vermont. California and Texas could not be studied directly, so published mineral information was reviewed, though a few Texas mill samples were examined. They reported that most of the economically important deposits fell into two groups. Vermont ores, formed from serpentine rock, were mainly talc, magnesite and chlorite. In New York's Gouverneur district, the ore most often mined was mainly talc, tremolite and anthophyllite, the last described as prismatic to fibrous. Mill dusts had minerals similar to the ores. In New York, quartz ranged from less than 1% to 20% (average 7.5%) in mill samples and from less than 1% to 22.5% in ore samples. In Vermont, only one mine sample contained minute amounts of quartz. Only quartz was measured quantitatively. The authors concluded that carbonate-type deposits appeared to be a greater industrial health problem, and called for more study of the serpentine type.

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: Mineralogical field survey of commercial talc mines and mills, combined with a review of published mineral information and of earlier industrial health studies of talcosis
• Who was studied: Commercial talc deposits in the United States. Ore, mill dust and product samples were collected in mines and mills in New York and Vermont. California and Texas deposits were assessed mainly from published mineral information, plus a few Texas mill samples. No dates of the visits are given.
• Exposure: Commercial talc ores and mill dusts. Depending on the deposit, these contained talc, tremolite, anthophyllite, chlorite, magnesite, serpentine, carbonates and quartz. The authors use 'talc' for the mineral itself and 'commercial talc' for the mine product.
• Main results:
  • Most economically important US commercial talc deposits fell into one of two groups: those formed from serpentine rock and those formed from carbonate rock.
  • The major minerals in the Vermont ores, which are of serpentine origin, were talc, magnesite and chlorite.
  • In the ore most often mined in New York's Gouverneur district (St. Lawrence County), talc was platy, tremolite was prismatic, and anthophyllite was prismatic to fibrous. A different, very fine-grained ore was mined in adjacent Lewis County.
  • Dust and product samples collected in the mills had minerals similar to the ore samples.
  • At one large mill in northern Vermont, dust in the areas beyond the concentrating tables and flotation cells was free of carbonates, metallic sulfides and oxides.
  • New York quartz content: mill samples ranged from less than 1% to 20% and averaged 7.5%; ore samples ranged from less than 1% to 22.5%.
  • In Vermont, only one mine sample contained minute amounts of quartz.
  • A few Texas mill samples were mainly talc with small amounts of dolomite and quartz.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that the carbonate-origin deposits (usually talc, tremolite and often anthophyllite) appeared to be a greater industrial health problem than the serpentine-origin type (talc, chlorite, carbonate, often vermiculite). They said further environmental and toxicologic study of the serpentine type would be advisable. They suggested that, if that type proved innocuous, two different threshold-limit values for commercial talc might be needed. They also urged strict use of mineral names in place of vague terms such as soapstone or tremolite talc.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • Apart from quartz, the percentage of each mineral in the samples was not measured, because the ore bodies vary so much that very extensive sampling would be needed.
  • The mill products collected represented only the material being processed at the time of sampling, which changes with the grade being produced.
  • Two of the regions (California and Texas) could not be studied directly and were assessed from available published mineral information.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Talc and vermiculite.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Talc.

Related studies

• Bronchiolitis in a patient with talcosis — K. Reijula, P. Pääkkö, et al. (1991)
• The dust hazard in tremolite talc mining — L. Greenburg (1947)
• Respiratory effects from industrial talc exposure among former mining workers — R.C. Loyola, A.P. Carneiro, et al. (2010)
• Particle size for differentiation between inhalation and injection pulmonary talcosis — J.L. Abraham, C. Brambilla (1980)
• Pulmonary ventilatory function in talcosis of lung — M. Kleinfeld, J. Messite, et al. (1964)
• Mixed pneumoconiosis: silicosis, asbestosis, talcosis, and berylliosis — G.J. Mark, C.B. Monroe, et al. (1979)

Browse more research in Archives of Environmental Health, or return to medical research.