Instances of sprayed asbestos use in Brazil

Our plain-English summary of Instances of sprayed asbestos use in Brazil, by G. Tweedale (International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 1998).

The study

• Author: G. Tweedale
• Journal: International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health
• Published: 1998;4(3):206
• Type of article: Comment, Letter
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This was a one-page letter to the editor, not a research study. The author replied to an earlier letter by Jacques Range, President of the Brazilian Asbestos Association, which had said asbestos was never sprayed in Brazil. The author called this wrong. Citing the Turner & Newall company archive, made public through litigation by Chase Manhattan Bank, the author reported that Turner & Newall invented and patented the spray process in 1931 and sold it as Sprayed Limpet Asbestos. By the 1950s over 500 spray machines had been licensed in most industrialized or industrializing countries, including Brazil. Memos from 1959 named two Brazilian licensees: Industria de Isolantes Termicos Ltda. (two spray machines) and Etil Engenharia & Isolamentos Termicos Ltda. (one). Sites where the product was applied included Brazilian oil refineries, such as the Refineria de Manguinhos and Petroleo Brasileiro S.A., for fire protection and thermal insulation. Another site was the Avenida Central Building in Rio de Janeiro. The letter named no fiber type and gave no health data from Brazil. The author wrote that further research would probably uncover many other locations.

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: Letter to the editor drawing on historical company documents (the Turner & Newall archive); not a research study
• Who was studied: No study population. The letter concerned Brazilian companies licensed to use the Turner & Newall asbestos spray process, as shown in 1959 memos from its subsidiary J. W. Roberts, and the Brazilian sites where the product was applied.
• Exposure: Sprayed asbestos sold as Sprayed Limpet Asbestos, a spray process devised by the Turner & Newall subsidiary J. W. Roberts of Leeds, England; the fiber type was not stated
• Main results:
  • The spray process was invented and patented by the British company Turner & Newall in 1931.
  • By the 1950s Turner & Newall had licensed over 500 spray machines, based in most industrialized or industrializing countries, including Brazil.
  • 1959 memos named two Brazilian licensees: Industria de Isolantes Termicos Ltda. (two spray machines) and Etil Engenharia & Isolamentos Termicos Ltda. (one spray machine).
  • Sites in Brazil included oil refineries, such as the Refineria de Manguinhos and Petroleo Brasileiro S.A., which used the sprayed asbestos for fire protection and thermal insulation.
  • Sprayed Limpet Asbestos was also applied to the Avenida Central Building in Rio de Janeiro.
  • The licensee information came from the Turner & Newall archive, which was made public through litigation by Chase Manhattan Bank against the company.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that the earlier statement that asbestos was never sprayed in Brazil was wrong.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The author indicated that the sites listed were probably incomplete, and that further research would likely find many other Brazilian locations where sprayed asbestos was used.

Topics

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

Related studies

• Photoessay. Workers' exposures to asbestos in Brazil — (1999)
• Worker exposure to asbestos during removal of sprayed material and renovation activity in buildings containing sprayed material — N.W. Paik, R.J. Walcott, et al. (1983)
• Asbestos exposure during uncontrolled removal of sprayed-on asbestos — P. Dumortier, P. De Vuyst (2012)
• Health implications of atmospheric aerosols from asbestos-bearing road pavements traditionally used in Southern Brazil — R.H.M. Godoi, S.J. Gonçalves, et al. (2016)
• Asbestos and health in the Third World: the case of Brazil — D.M. Berman (1986)
• The epidemiology of laryngeal cancer in Brazil — V. Wünsch Filho (2004)

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