Mining and mendacity, or how to keep a toxic product in the marketplace

Our plain-English summary of Mining and mendacity, or how to keep a toxic product in the marketplace, by J. McCulloch (International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 2005).

The study

• Author: J. McCulloch
• Journal: International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health
• Published: 2005;11(4):398-403
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Abstract

The corruption of medical evidence about the hazards of asbestos began with the Canadian mines. Quebec at one time boasted ten of the 13 mines in Canada. Work conditions in the mines were harsh, and the mills were full of airborne fiber. Given the size of the industry, the Quebec mines were where occupational asbestosis should first have been identified, but research at the mines was done in company towns, where clinics were staffed by company doctors. Since the late 1920s U.S. parent companies and their Canadian subsidiaries have maintained that there is little if any disease among mine workers. Asbestosis in textile workers, they have claimed, has been due to the conditions in that industry and not the inherent dangers of asbestos. That fiction continues to shape the discourse about the usefulness of asbestos.

In plain English

This article is a historical analysis, not a medical study. The author used internal Turner & Newall company correspondence obtained through legal discovery, unpublished reports, newspaper accounts and a Quebec commission's findings to examine how the asbestos industry handled medical evidence about disease in Canadian chrysotile mines, mainly in Quebec. The author described an unpublished 1930 survey coordinated by Dr. Frank Pedley and assisted by Dr. Stevenson. It covered 141 Johns-Manville employees at Asbestos and 54 men at Thetford. Of 40 men examined by Stevenson, 14 (35%) had stage one asbestosis. Almost half of 56 men x-rayed at Thetford had asbestosis, and 17 of the 141 at Asbestos had the disease. According to the author, Metropolitan Life's Dr. Anthony Lanza refused permission to publish, and the study was never released. Meanwhile, companies maintained that there was little or no disease among mine workers. In 1976 the Beaudry Commission concluded that the Quebec mines and mills were unsafe. The author concluded that, until the 1970s, industry research with unfavorable results was suppressed and fictionalized accounts of disease rates were published in its place.

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 analysis based on archival company documents, unpublished medical reports, newspaper articles and commission findings; not an epidemiological study
• Who was studied: the Canadian asbestos mining industry, mainly the Quebec mines (including Asbestos, Thetford and East Broughton), from the late 1920s to the early 2000s, with comparisons to mines in Southern Africa
• Exposure: chrysotile asbestos dust from mining and dry milling, including bagging work, and environmental exposure in mining communities
• Main results:
  • The unpublished 1930 Pedley-Stevenson survey, as described by the author, covered 141 Johns-Manville employees at Asbestos and 54 men at Thetford
  • In that survey, 14 of 40 men examined by Dr. Stevenson (35%) had stage one asbestosis, almost half of 56 men x-rayed at Thetford had asbestosis, and 17 of 141 men at Asbestos had the disease
  • Pedley concluded that asbestosis was common in these miners but of little importance
  • Dr. Anthony Lanza of Metropolitan Life refused permission to publish, and the study was never released
  • Since the late 1920s, U.S. parent companies and their Canadian subsidiaries maintained that there was little or no disease among mine workers
  • In a 1940 paper, Dr. Stevenson stated that of 507 men at Asbestos with more than ten years of service, only 22 (just over 4%) showed early signs of fibrosis
  • Metropolitan Life added an extra 40% loading to health insurance premiums for asbestos workers
  • In 1976 the Beaudry Commission concluded that the Quebec mines and mills were unsafe and that some 15,000 Quebec workers had spent their entire lives in a hazardous environment
  • Dr. Cartier, director of the company clinic at Thetford, told the Beaudry Commission that he often advised miners with asbestosis not to seek workers' compensation
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that until the 1970s the industry funded most asbestos health research, released favorable results, and suppressed unfavorable results while publishing fictionalized accounts of disease rates in their place

Topics

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

Related studies

• Asbestos mining in Southern Africa, 1893-2002 — J. McCulloch (2003)
• Exposing the "myth" of ABC, "anything but chrysotile": a critique of the Canadian asbestos mining industry and McGill University chrysotile studies — D. Egilman, C. Fehnel, et al. (2003)
• Exposure to chrysotile mining dust and digestive cancer mortality in a Chinese miner/miller cohort — S. Lin, X. Wang, et al. (2014)
• Present status of asbestos mining and related health problems in India--a survey — A.L. Ramanathan, V. Subramanian (2001)
• Dust exposure and mortality in chrysotile mining, 1910-75. 1980 — J.C. McDonald, F.D. Liddell, et al. (1993)
• Asbestos mining and occupational disease in Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, 1915-98 — J. McCulloch (2003)

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