Editorial: Exposure to asbestos dust

Our plain-English summary of Editorial: Exposure to asbestos dust (British Medical Journal, 1976).

The study

• Journal: British Medical Journal
• Published: 1976;1(6022):1361-2
• 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. 002273).

In plain English

This was an unsigned British Medical Journal editorial, not a research study. It reviewed earlier work and official reports on asbestos dust and reported no new data. Citing earlier work, it stated that in recent years at least 60% of workers accepted by pneumoconiosis panels as disabled by asbestosis later developed lung cancer; these workers had excessive exposure more than 20 years earlier. It said diffuse pleural mesothelioma appeared much more often linked to crocidolite (blue) asbestos than to other fibres. It reported that a 1972 International Agency for Research on Cancer committee found no indication of a risk to the general public. It stated that about 200 mesotheliomas were diagnosed yearly in the United Kingdom, at most 60 in people with no known exposure. Assuming all of those 60 were caused by low-level environmental exposure, the editorial said the mesothelioma risk would be small, less than one hundredth of the chance of being killed on the roads. It said crocidolite insulating steam pipes and boilers should be removed and replaced. It acknowledged that precise answers about crocidolite risk were difficult to give.

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 published evidence and official reports; no original data)
• Who was studied: No study population. The editorial discussed published evidence on asbestos workers and on the general public in Britain and the United Kingdom.
• Exposure: Occupational and environmental exposure to asbestos dust, including all commercial types. It paid particular attention to crocidolite (blue) asbestos and also mentioned chrysotile and amosite. Crocidolite insulation in buildings, steam pipes and boilers was also discussed.
• Main results:
  • Citing earlier work, the editorial stated that in recent years at least 60% of workers accepted by the pneumoconiosis panels as disabled by asbestosis had later developed lung cancer. These workers had had excessive exposure to asbestos dust more than 20 years earlier.
  • Diffuse mesothelioma of the pleura appeared much more often associated with crocidolite than with other fibre types. The editorial stated that there had as yet been no case in Britain with conclusive evidence implicating another type of asbestos alone.
  • The 1972 IARC Advisory Committee on Asbestos Cancers found evidence of an association of mesothelial tumours with air pollution near crocidolite mines and near factories using mixed fibre types. It found no evidence of excess mesothelioma risk from air pollution near chrysotile and amosite mines.
  • Citing earlier studies, the editorial stated that no history of exposure to asbestos dust had been found for 10 to 30% of proved cases of pleural mesothelioma.
  • About 200 mesotheliomas were diagnosed per year in the United Kingdom, and at most 60 of these occurred in people with no known exposure to asbestos. The editorial assumed, for the sake of argument, that all 60 were due to low-level environmental exposure. Even on that assumption, it put the risk at less than one hundredth of the chance of being killed on the roads.
  • Citing earlier work, the editorial stated that mesothelioma incidence was less than 7% even in populations with a history of high exposure to crocidolite dust.
  • The editorial stated that animal experiments indicated that rigid or semi-rigid substitute fibres of very small diameter can be dangerous. It added that tumour incidence with these fibres was very much less than with asbestos.
• The authors' conclusion: The editorial concluded that the mesothelioma risk from low-level environmental exposure would be small, even assuming that all cases with no known exposure had that cause. It held that demolishing every building containing crocidolite was neither possible nor desirable, but that crocidolite insulating steam pipes and boilers should be removed and replaced. It expected a planned one-year analysis of lung dust in all British mesothelioma cases to clarify the relative hazards of occupational, immediate environmental and general exposure.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The editorial acknowledged that it was difficult to give a precise answer about possible risks from exposure to crocidolite dust.
  • The editorial noted that the IARC committee's findings on mesothelioma near mines and factories related to conditions many years earlier.

Topics

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

Related studies

• Editorial: Asbestos hazard — (1973)
• Editorial: Epigenetic Modifications in Mesothelioma — Y.Y. Cheng, M.L. Yuen, et al. (2021)
• Editorial comment May cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), p21 and p27 expression affect prognosis and therapeutic strategy of patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma? — I. Opitz (2010)
• Editorial: Asbestos and disease genomics: is mesothelioma a genomic paradigm? — M.C. Jaurand, F. Murphy, et al. (2024)
• Some observations of the dust content and composition in lungs with asbestosis, made during work on coal miners pneumoconiosis — G. Nagelschmidt (1965)
• Measurement of asbestos dust levels in British asbestos factories in the 1930s — N.J. Wikeley (1993)

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