Is there a risk to health in using asbestos--cement pipes for the carriage of drinking water?

Our plain-English summary of Is there a risk to health in using asbestos--cement pipes for the carriage of drinking water?, by S.F. McCullagh (The Annals of Occupational Hygiene, 1980).

The study

• Author: S.F. McCullagh
• Journal: The Annals of Occupational Hygiene
• Published: 1980;23(2):189-93
• Cited by: 2 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 no. 004058).

In plain English

This 1980 article was a single-author review of published research on whether drinking water carried in asbestos-cement pipes poses a health risk. The author did not collect new data. It asked whether swallowing asbestos causes gut cancer or peritoneal mesothelioma, and whether asbestos-cement pipes add meaningfully to the asbestos in drinking water. The author considered animal feeding experiments of limited value. Rat studies generally found malignant tumours no more common in treated rats than in controls. In occupationally exposed workers, the excess of gut cancer reported by other studies was described as ranging from barely above 1 to, more usually, about 3 times expected. Studies of communities in Quebec, Connecticut, around Lake Superior and in 97 U.S. counties with asbestos deposits were described as finding no excess gut cancer linked to asbestos in water. The author also questioned how accurately fibres in water can be counted. The author concluded that asbestos-cement pipe adds at most negligible amounts of asbestos to water. The author also concluded that no excess gut cancer had been observed in people drinking such water.

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: Narrative review of published animal, occupational and community studies; no new data collected
• Who was studied: No study population of its own. The review covered rat and hamster feeding experiments, occupationally exposed asbestos workers, 22 Quebec municipalities, Connecticut towns with and without asbestos-cement water pipes, communities drinking Lake Superior water, and 97 U.S. counties with asbestos deposits compared with 194 control counties.
• Exposure: Ingested asbestos, mainly chrysotile but also amphibole and amosite. Sources included asbestos occurring naturally in drinking water, asbestos released from asbestos-cement pipes, asbestos fed to animals, and asbestos swallowed by workers after inhaling it.
• Main results:
  • In rats fed various types of asbestos (studies by others), malignant tumours were generally no more common in treated rats than in controls.
  • In hamsters (Smith et al., 1965), 3 malignant abdominal tumours were found among 30 fed 1% chrysotile and 15 fed 1% amosite, and none among 15 controls. Some treated animals had also received asbestos intra-pleurally or intra-tracheally.
  • Among occupationally exposed workers (various studies by others), the reported excess risk of gut cancer ranged from barely greater than 1 to, more usually, about 3 times expected.
  • Wigle (1977), Quebec municipalities: no excess cancer mortality was found that the investigator related to asbestos fibres in drinking water. An excess of stomach and lung cancer among males in high-asbestos-water areas was attributed by that investigator to occupational exposure.
  • Harrington et al. (1978), Connecticut: gut cancer incidence did not differ between towns whose water passed wholly or partly through asbestos-cement pipes and towns whose water did not.
  • Lake Superior (Levy et al., 1976): from the start of dumping of amphibole-containing mine tailings in 1955 up to 1974, there was no increase in gut cancer in communities drinking this water.
  • Fears (1976), 97 counties with asbestos deposits compared with 194 control counties: no difference in gut cancer or lung cancer incidence in either sex.
  • Brown et al. (1976): in the only sample in which all nine laboratories found asbestos on all occasions, fibre counts ranged from 1.3 million to 575 million fibres per litre. The author placed little confidence in such estimates.
  • Hallenbeck et al. (1978), 15 sites: no statistically significant release of chrysotile from asbestos-cement pipe systems was found, though those investigators recognized that release might occur below their detection limits.
  • The author's own estimate used an average potable-water chrysotile content of about 1 µg per gallon (from Speil) and 2 litres drunk per day for 70 years. As printed, this gave lifetime consumption of about 10 mg, or 0.15 mg/kg for a 70 kg person, which the author said was substantially less than the daily doses given to experimental animals.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that the amounts of asbestos occurring naturally in drinking water, or added by asbestos-cement pipes, are too small to be expected to cause gut cancer. The author added that all epidemiological studies were consistent with this view.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The author considered data from animal experiments to be of limited value.
  • For Lake Superior, the author stated that the time elapsed since exposure began was insufficient for a final judgement.
  • The author stated that measuring very low levels of asbestos fibres in water by electron microscopy is of doubtful accuracy.
  • For the Soviet report of a high gut cancer risk in women asbestos mill workers (Kogan), the author noted that the numbers of women behind the figures were not known.

Related studies

• An investigation of the use of asbestos cement pipe for public water supply and the incidence of gastrointestinal cancer in Connecticut, 1935-1973 — J.M. Harrington, G.F. Craun, et al. (1978)
• Epidemiology study of the use of asbestos-cement pipe for the distribution of drinking water in Escambia County, Florida — J.R. Millette, G.F. Craun, et al. (1983)
• Cancer of the gastrointestinal tract and exposure to asbestos in drinking water among lighthouse keepers (Norway) — K. Kjaerheim, B. Ulvestad, et al. (2005)
• Incidence of cancer among lighthouse keepers exposed to asbestos in drinking water — A. Andersen, E. Glattre, et al. (1993)
• The control of potential health risks related to drinking water in the UK — T.A. Dick (1981)
• Cancer risk from asbestos in drinking water: summary of a case-control study in western Washington — L. Polissar, R.K. Severson, et al. (1983)

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