"Controlled use" of asbestos

Our plain-English summary of "Controlled use" of asbestos, by B. Castleman (International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 2003).

The study

• Author: B. Castleman
• Journal: International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health
• Published: 2003;9(3):294-8
• Cited by: 23 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Summary of the article

This commentary critically examined the asbestos industry's term "controlled use," which the author described as sales propaganda never reflected in actual practice. It focused on asbestos-cement (A-C) products, which accounted for over 90% of world asbestos use. The author drew on regulatory history, industry documents and trade-magazine reports, published exposure measurements, his own visits to several countries, and his attendance at World Trade Organization (WTO) hearings as a scientific advisor to the European Commission. He reported that in 1970 US A-C producers rejected a warning about the hazards of sawing their products. Industry data from the 1970s showed power-saw exposures over 250 f/cc, reducible to 0.8 f/cc with local exhaust ventilation. The author said such equipment was rarely if ever used in construction. Abrasive disc saws produced 26-109 f/cc for operators and 10-49 f/cc for helpers. A later Japanese study recorded 49-170 f/cc (mean 92) during pipe repair inside holes. In Puerto Rico, 1,300 families were relocated from A-C housing. The 1998 International Program on Chemical Safety report concluded that no level of chrysotile exposure was free from cancer risk. At the WTO, Canada lost its challenge to the French asbestos ban, and the WTO's experts did not consider Canada's "controlled use" realistic. US OSHA had issued 4,000 citations for asbestos violations in 1996-1998. The author contrasted continued asbestos use in India with bans in Brazil. He concluded that really well controlled use of asbestos had never existed, and that vegetable-fiber cement composites were an encouraging alternative.

PubMed has no abstract for this study, and the article doesn't print one. We wrote this summary from the full article with the help of AI. It is not the authors' wording.

In plain English

This was a commentary in which the author critically reviewed "controlled use," a term the author said the asbestos industry used as sales propaganda never reflected in actual practice. It focused on asbestos cement products. The author reported that in 1970 a US producers' group rejected a proposed warning about sawing these products. The author cited a Johns-Manville official who reported at a 1976 government-industry conference that power saws on asbestos cement sheets could cause exposures over 250 fibers per cubic centimeter (f/cc), reducible to 0.8 f/cc with well-designed and properly operated local exhaust ventilation. The author wrote that such equipment was rarely if ever used in construction. Industry reports from 1977 measured 26-109 f/cc for abrasive disc saw operators working on asbestos cement pipe and 10-49 f/cc for their helpers. The author also described a 1998 International Program on Chemical Safety report on chrysotile, which concluded that no exposure level was free from cancer risk, and a World Trade Organization case that Canada lost. The author concluded that really well controlled use of asbestos had never existed anywhere in the world.

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 (critical review of a term and its history; not an original study)
• Who was studied: No study population. The subject was the asbestos industry's "controlled use" claims, with particular attention to asbestos cement products, drawing on events in the United States, India, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Japan and at the World Trade Organization.
• Exposure: Asbestos cement products (sheets, pipe, roofing), especially exposures from cutting them with power saws and abrasive disc saws; chrysotile asbestos
• Main results:
  • In 1970 the US Asbestos Cement Producers Association rejected a recommendation by some members to include a warning about the hazards of sawing asbestos cement products in its brochure.
  • At a 1976 government-industry conference, a Johns-Manville official reported that power saws on asbestos cement sheets could cause exposures over 250 f/cc. He said this could be reduced to 0.8 f/cc with well-designed and properly operated local exhaust ventilation.
  • The author stated that saws and drills fitted with local exhaust ventilation were rarely if ever actually used in the construction industry.
  • 1977 reports released by the US Asbestos Cement Pipe Producers Association measured exposures of 26-109 f/cc in abrasive disc saw operators and 10-49 f/cc in the operators' helpers.
  • Japanese researchers recorded exposures during repair of asbestos cement pipes with high-speed disc cutters of 49-170 f/cc (mean value 92) inside the hole and 1.7-15 f/cc outside it.
  • In Puerto Rico, after court cases over government housing built with asbestos cement sheets, the houses were ordered taken down and 1,300 families were relocated.
  • The 1998 International Program on Chemical Safety report on chrysotile asbestos concluded that no level of chrysotile exposure was free from cancer risk, and recommended that chrysotile asbestos not be used in construction materials.
  • At the World Trade Organization hearings, an expert testified that OSHA had issued 4,000 citations in 1996-1998 for violations of the 1994 OSHA asbestos standard.
  • According to the author, none of the World Trade Organization's scientific experts thought Canada's picture of "controlled use" resembled reality, and Canada lost the case.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that really well controlled use of asbestos had never existed anywhere in the world and was not being invented anywhere. The author described vegetable waste fibers in cement as an encouraging alternative to asbestos cement.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Controlled Use, Asbestos-Cement, Chrysotile, OSHA.

Related studies

• The phase-out of asbestos in the Australian manufacturing environment — D.A. Vallance (2004)
• Asbestos and international organizations — L. Tomatis (2004)
• Asbestos dispatches — L. Kazan-Allen (2004)
• Canadian asbestos: a global concern — L. Kazan-Allen (2004)
• Environmental policies, politics, and community risk perception: case study of community contamination in Casper, Wyoming — M. Tajik, K. Gottlieb, et al. (2007)
• Collegium Ramazzini call for an international ban on asbestos — P.J. Landrigan, M. Soffritti (2005)

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