Historical background to the asbestos problem

Our plain-English summary of Historical background to the asbestos problem, by D.H. Lee, I.J. Selikoff (Environmental Research, 1979).

The study

• Authors: D.H. Lee, I.J. Selikoff
• Journal: Environmental Research
• Published: 1979;18(2):300-14
• Type of article: Historical article
• Cited by: 17 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 nos. 002087, 004067).

Summary of the article

The authors reviewed the history of asbestos use and of the recognition of asbestos-related disease, from prehistoric times to the 1960s. The article was condensed from the opening chapter of their monograph Asbestos and Disease. They described early uses, such as asbestos fibers in Finnish pottery dating from 2500 B.C. and asbestos lamp wicks and cremation cloths in classical antiquity. They then described the development of large-scale mining in Canada, South Africa, Italy, Russia, the United States, Rhodesia and elsewhere from the late 19th century. One table listed developments in manufacture. A second table gave United States chrysotile consumption in 1972 by end use, totalling 770,000 short tons. The review traced the recognition of harm through several milestones: an 1898 British women factory inspectors' report, Murray's 1899 postmortem of an asbestos worker, Cooke's reports from 1924, including his first use of the term "asbestosis" in 1927, and the 1930 Merewether and Price report to the British parliament. It described the later recognition of pleural plaques and calcification, mesothelioma and lung cancer. This included Wagner and colleagues' 1960 report of 33 pleural mesotheliomas, 28 with some association with the Cape asbestos field, and Doll's 1955 finding that men employed 20 or more years at a large asbestos works had 10 times the general population's lung cancer risk. The authors concluded that by the 1960s the essential evidence had been reported, but it rested largely on scattered small case reports. They stated that systematic epidemiological studies of large cohorts with adequate controls were needed.

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 article was a historical review, condensed by the authors from the opening chapter of their monograph Asbestos and Disease. It reported no new data. It traced asbestos use from prehistoric times to large-scale mining in Canada, South Africa, Italy, Russia, the United States and Rhodesia, and the spread of asbestos products. It then recounted, from earlier publications, how disease was recognized. These included an 1898 British factory inspectors' report, Cooke's first use of "asbestosis" in 1927, and a 1930 British parliamentary report on lung fibrosis. The review described early reports of pleural calcification and plaques, and of pleural mesothelioma. One was a 1960 report by Wagner and colleagues of 33 cases, 28 with some association with the Cape asbestos field. It also described lung cancer reports, including Doll's 1955 report that men employed 20 or more years at a large asbestos works had an average risk 10 times that of the general population, and studies disputing a link. The authors concluded that by the 1960s the essential evidence had been reported but was not yet assembled or convincing.

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: Historical review (narrative), condensed from the opening chapter of the authors' monograph Asbestos and Disease
• Who was studied: No study population. The review covered historical records and published reports on asbestos use, production and disease, from prehistoric times up to the 1960s.
• Exposure: Asbestos in general, covering its mining, manufacture and use. Fiber types named include chrysotile (Canada, Italy, Vermont, Rhodesia), crocidolite (Cape Province, South Africa; Australia), amosite (northeast Transvaal), tremolite and anthophyllite (Finland).
• Main results:
  • Production history (as reported from cited sources): by 1970 United States annual production was 125,314 tons, or 3.3% of the world figure.
  • Recognition of asbestosis (as recounted by the review): Cooke used the term "asbestosis" for the first time in the second of his 1927 papers.
  • Pleural changes (as recounted by the review): in 1955 Jacob and Bohlig reported pleural calcification in some 5% of 343 asbestos workers examined in Dresden.
  • Mesothelioma (as recounted by the review): Wagner and colleagues (1960) reported 33 histologically proven cases of pleural mesothelioma seen over the previous 4 years. Of these, 28 had some association with the Cape asbestos field and four had been exposed to asbestos in industry.
  • Mesothelioma near mines (as recounted by the review): in 1963 Wagner reported more than 120 cases seen since 1956. More than half of these people had never worked in the asbestos industry but lived in the vicinity of the mines and mills.
  • Lung cancer (as recounted by the review): Merewether found lung carcinoma in 13.2% of 235 necropsies on patients with asbestosis, compared with 1.32% of 6884 cases of silicosis.
  • Lung cancer (as recounted by the review): Doll (1955) reported on coroner's necropsies of persons employed at a large asbestos works. Among men employed 20 or more years, the average lung cancer risk had been 10 times that of the general population.
  • Conflicting evidence (as recounted by the review): in 1958 Bohlig and Jacob, and Braun and Truan (who surveyed death certificates of some 6000 Canadian miners), did not find a significant association between asbestos and lung cancer.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that, seen from the late 1970s, the essential evidence had already been reported by the 1960s but was not yet assembled or credible enough to be entirely convincing. In their view, much of the negative evidence came from conclusions drawn prematurely, before slow cancer processes had become evident.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The authors noted that the precision of the dates in their table of events in asbestos development and manufacture may be open to question.

Topics

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

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Chrysotile, Pleural Plaques, Mesothelioma, Lung Cancer, Pleural Mesothelioma, Cape Asbestos.

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