No meeting of the minds on asbestos

Our plain-English summary of No meeting of the minds on asbestos, by R. Stone (Science, 1991).

The study

• Author: R. Stone
• Journal: Science
• Published: 1991;254(5034):928-31
• Type of article: News
• Cited by: 4 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. 004448).

In plain English

This Science news article is not a research study and reported no new data. The author described a split among US asbestos researchers. One camp, centered on Irving Selikoff's group at Mount Sinai Hospital, opposed regulating asbestos fiber types differently. The other, called 'revisionist', held that chrysotile poses relatively little risk to the general public at usual exposure levels. The article cited 1970s studies indicating a smaller percentage of chrysotile-exposed workers dying of mesothelioma; the Mount Sinai group countered that asbestosis and lung cancer rates were similar across fiber types. The first of two opposing meetings, a December 1988 Harvard symposium partly funded by the Safe Buildings Alliance, concluded that the risk from asbestos in buildings is small. The second, a June 1990 'Third Wave' conference organized by Selikoff, received $50,000 from a fund administered by lawyers for school systems suing former asbestos makers. Each side accused the other's meeting of bias, and researchers from one camp no longer attended the other's meetings. The author concluded that until researchers engaged with each other's arguments, judges and regulators would remain caught in the middle.

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: News article (News & Comment section of Science); journalism based on interviews and correspondence, not a research study
• Who was studied: Not a study population. The article describes US asbestos researchers and two conferences: a Harvard symposium on 14-16 December 1988 and the 'Third Wave' conference in June 1990.
• Exposure: The article's subject is the scientific dispute over whether chrysotile is less hazardous than amphibole fibers (crocidolite, amosite), and over the risk from asbestos in buildings and other non-occupational settings.
• Main results:
  • The article reported that the debate had become so polarized that researchers from one camp no longer attended the other camp's meetings.
  • The article described the Mt. Sinai group, established by Selikoff, as the focus of opposition to regulating the fiber types differently.
  • According to the article, the 1988 Harvard symposium concluded that the health risk from the roughly 30 million tons of asbestos in buildings is small, far less than tobacco smoke and radon.
  • The Mt. Sinai camp considered the Harvard symposium tainted, in part because some of its funding came from the Safe Buildings Alliance, a lobbying group for former asbestos makers.
  • Selikoff received $50,000 toward the Third Wave conference from a fund administered by lawyers representing school systems suing former asbestos manufacturers.
  • The article cited earlier epidemiological studies of asbestos miners and millers from the 1970s, not this article's own findings. Those studies indicated that a smaller percentage of chrysotile-exposed workers were dying of mesothelioma than workers exposed to amphiboles or mixed fibers.
  • The Mt. Sinai group argued that epidemiological evidence suggested workers exposed to different fiber types were contracting asbestosis and dying of lung cancer at similar rates.
  • The article reported that Mt. Sinai researchers pointed to a few studies, by others, showing similar mesothelioma rates in people exposed to 98% chrysotile and 2% crocidolite, 60% chrysotile and 40% amosite, and 100% amosite.
  • The article stated that an estimated 95% of asbestos used commercially in the United States is chrysotile.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that until the scientists pay attention to each other's arguments and design experiments to resolve them, judges and regulators will remain caught in the middle of the dispute.

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