Editorial: Asbestos hazard

Our plain-English summary of Editorial: Asbestos hazard (British Medical Journal, 1973).

The study

• Journal: British Medical Journal
• Published: 1973;4(5888):312-3
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Free full text
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 002377).

In plain English

This editorial in the British Medical Journal was not a new study. It reviewed published research on the health effects of breathing in asbestos dust, and a report by the Advisory Committee on Asbestos Cancers to the International Agency for Research on Cancer. It described earlier work linking asbestos to pulmonary fibrosis, bronchial carcinoma, and mesothelioma of the pleura or peritoneum. One cited example was a U.S. study of insulation workers, in which asbestos exposure combined with cigarette smoking raised lung cancer risk 90-fold compared with non-smokers without occupational asbestos exposure. It also summarized a Pittsburgh study of over 1,300 retired men, in which lung cancer death rates at the highest dust level were about three times those at the lowest. According to the editorial, the advisory committee found evidence for a causal relationship, with risk differing by fiber type. Mesothelioma risk was greatest with crocidolite and less with chrysotile, and no excess mesothelioma was found near chrysotile and amosite mines. The editorial concluded that breathing in asbestos dust is dangerous. It added that how much exposure, and to which fibers, was not yet sufficiently clear.

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 (commentary reviewing other published studies and an IARC advisory committee report); no original data
• Who was studied: No population of its own. The editorial discussed published studies of insulation workers (U.S.A. and Belfast), naval dockyard workers, shipyard workers, people living near an asbestos factory in Great Britain, and over 1,300 retired men studied in Pittsburgh.
• Exposure: Inhaled asbestos dust from occupational and neighbourhood exposure; fiber types discussed were crocidolite, chrysotile and amosite
• Main results:
  • In the cited U.S. cohort of insulation workers (Selikoff and colleagues), asbestos exposure combined with cigarette smoking increased lung cancer risk 90-fold compared with non-smokers without occupational asbestos exposure
  • In a cited British study (Newhouse and Thompson), mesothelioma was associated with living within half a mile of an asbestos factory in an urban area
  • In a cited radiological study of naval dockyard workers, 3% had abnormalities related to asbestos exposure, and half of these had not themselves worked with asbestos
  • In a cited group of shipyard workers whose dust exposure was near the threshold limit value, asbestosis first developed after 13 years' exposure
  • In the cited Pittsburgh cohort of over 1,300 retired men (Enterline and colleagues), age-corrected lung cancer death rates at the highest dust level were about three times those at the lowest level
  • In the same Pittsburgh cohort, lung cancer death risk rose sharply at exposures between 100 and 200 million particles per cubic foot of air-years, and no direct relationship was found below 125
  • The IARC advisory committee found evidence for a causal relationship between asbestos and cancer, with risk differing by fiber type and nature of exposure
  • According to the committee, all commercial types of asbestos may cause mesothelioma, with risk greatest for crocidolite and less for chrysotile. No excess mesothelioma risk was found in the neighbourhood of chrysotile and amosite mines.
  • According to the committee, existing evidence did not indicate an increased cancer risk from asbestos fibres in food, drink, or drug fluids
  • According to the editorial, accumulated data showed that cigarette smoking enhances lung cancer risk in asbestos-exposed workers
• The authors' conclusion: The editorial concluded that epidemiological studies consistently show that breathing in asbestos dust is dangerous. It said the hazard appears to be a continuing one, with some risk outside the asbestos industry as well as within it.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The editorial stated that it was not yet sufficiently clear how much exposure (concentration, time and pattern), to which fiber forms, is required, or who is particularly vulnerable
  • The editorial noted the difficulty of estimating past dust levels precisely for many different jobs in the Pittsburgh study

Topics

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

Related studies

• Editorial: Exposure to asbestos dust — (1976)
• Comparative hazards of chrysotile asbestos and its substitutes: A European perspective — P.T. Harrison, L.S. Levy, et al. (1999)
• Asbestos hazards in naval dockyards — P.G. Harries (1968)
• Asbestos as a hazard to health. Fact and speculation — W.C. Cooper (1967)
• Hazards of white asbestos — A.J. Dalton (1998)
• Editorial: Epigenetic Modifications in Mesothelioma — Y.Y. Cheng, M.L. Yuen, et al. (2021)

Browse more research in British Medical Journal, or return to medical research.