Editor's preface to the report of the workshop on health risks associated with chrysotile asbestos

Our plain-English summary of Editor's preface to the report of the workshop on health risks associated with chrysotile asbestos, by J.M. Ellison (The Annals of Occupational Hygiene, 1994).

The study

• Author: J.M. Ellison
• Journal: The Annals of Occupational Hygiene
• Published: 1994;38(4):397-8
• Type of article: Editorial, Historical article
• Cited by: 4 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This was not a research study but an editor's preface to a workshop report on health risks associated with chrysotile asbestos. It reproduced, in a translation supplied by Dr Robert Murray, the safety and health parts of a 1906 note by Monsieur Auribault, a District Inspector of Factories at Caen, France, on asbestos spinning and weaving. Auribault reported that French asbestos factories employed about 250 workers, most of them women. At a factory opened in 1890 near Conde-sur-Noireau (Calvados), with no artificial ventilation for its first 5 years, about 50 men and women workers died in that period. Of 17 workers recruited from a cotton mill at Gonneville, 16 were reported to have died of silicosis between 1890 and 1895. Once dust ventilation was added, mortality reportedly fell considerably. Auribault blamed silica dust, made worse by tuberculosis in weak workers, and recommended capturing dust at its source. A footnote noted that the death registers did not say whether the dead worked with cotton or asbestos. Dr Murray commented that Auribault was mistaken about the role of silica in fibrosis.

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• Design: Editor's preface reproducing translated excerpts of a 1906 French factory inspector's report (historical document, not a research study)
• Who was studied: Workers in asbestos spinning and weaving factories in France (about 250, mostly women), in particular a factory near Conde-sur-Noireau (Calvados) between 1890 and 1895
• Exposure: Dust from asbestos spinning and weaving (willows, scutchers, cards), with no artificial ventilation during the factory's first 5 years. No fiber type was named in the reproduced text.
• Main results:
  • About 50 men and women workers at the Conde-sur-Noireau factory died during the first 5 years of production, when there was no artificial ventilation
  • Of 17 workers recruited from the director's former cotton mill at Gonneville, 16 were reported to have died of silicosis between 1890 and 1895
  • After the cards were ventilated and the scutchers isolated, mortality was reported to have diminished considerably
  • Auribault considered that special circumstances, namely tuberculosis among weak or unhealthy recruits, aggravated the basic cause of the deaths
• The authors' conclusion: Auribault, the 1906 report's author, concluded that asbestos workers were exposed to the harmful action of silica dust and that capturing the dust where it was given off was the most effective remedy. Dr Murray commented that Auribault was mistaken about the role of silica in fibrosis. The preface's author drew no conclusions of their own.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The death registers gave only the occupation of the deceased (spinners or weavers) and did not show whether they worked with cotton or asbestos
  • The deaths were reported by the factory's directors, in 1904 and 1905

Topics

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

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

Related studies

• Workshop on the health risks associated with chrysotile asbestos: a brief review — M. Lippmann (1994)
• Letter to the Editor re Bernstein et al: Health risk of chrysotile revisited. Crit Rev Toxicol, 2013; 43(2): 154-183 — M.M. Finkelstein (2013)
• Response to Murray M. Finkelstein, letter to the editor re Bernstein et al: Health risk of chrysotile revisited. Crit Rev Toxicol, 2013; 43(2): 154-183 — D. Bernstein, J. Dunnigan, et al. (2013)
• Re: Paradis G. Ban all production and export of chrysotile asbestos [Editor's Page]. Can J Public Health 2010;101(5):352 — M. Greenberg (2011)
• Health risk of chrysotile revisited — D. Bernstein, J. Dunnigan, et al. (2013)
• Letter to the Editor on "Chrysotile and rock wool fibers induce chromosome aberrations and DNA damage in V79 lung fibroblast cells" — J.G. Hadley, A.E. Crane (2019)

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