Problems and perspectives: the changing hazards of exposure to asbestos

Our plain-English summary of Problems and perspectives: the changing hazards of exposure to asbestos, by J.C. Gilson (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1965).

The study

• Author: J.C. Gilson
• Journal: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
• Published: 1965;132(1):696-705
• Cited by: 16 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. 001525).

In plain English

This 1965 paper was not a new study. It was a commentary written for a conference on asbestos, in which the author reviewed past knowledge and conference reports and listed problems needing research. The author noted that, since a 1938 U.S. Public Health Service study of textile workers, there appeared to have been no comprehensive studies relating how common asbestosis was to dust measurements. Citing other researchers, the author reported that the average age at death from asbestosis in the United Kingdom had risen from 41 years (Merewether, 1934) to 57, and that insulation workers had become a most important group at risk. On lung cancer, the author asked whether the risk was raised without asbestosis, noting that 15 of 18 lung cancer cases in Doll's 1955 study had asbestosis. On pleural and peritoneal tumors, the author wrote that evidence from South Africa and the United Kingdom strongly suggested crocidolite was particularly involved, but did not consider the evidence for chrysotile incontrovertible. The author called for international standards and prospective studies, and concluded that much greater care must be taken to eliminate unnecessary exposure to asbestos dust.

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: Commentary/perspective paper for a conference, discussing past literature and conference reports; no new data collected
• Who was studied: No population studied directly; the author discussed published studies and conference reports on asbestos textile workers, insulation workers and others, mainly in the United Kingdom, the United States and South Africa
• Exposure: Asbestos dust in general, with discussion of fiber types (crocidolite, chrysotile, amosite) in relation to asbestosis, bronchial carcinoma and pleural and peritoneal (mesothelial) tumors
• Main results:
  • The author stated that there appeared to have been no comprehensive studies of asbestosis prevalence related to dust measurements since Dreessen and colleagues' 1938 study
  • Cited from Dreessen et al. (1938): asbestosis prevalence of 27 per cent in asbestos textile workers exposed for five to nine years. This was similar to the 25 per cent found by Merewether and Price (1930) in UK textile mills.
  • Cited from Mitchell (1961): a 100-fold improvement in dustiness in a U.S. asbestos textile factory between 1936 and 1960. Cited from Bamblin (1959): a 10 to 50-fold reduction in asbestosis prevalence in a UK factory over a similar period, with no dust counts given.
  • Cited figures on average age at death from asbestosis in the UK: Murray's 1907 case died at 33; Merewether (1934) reported an average of 41 years; McVittie (1965) and Smither (1965) found it was now 57. The author added that deaths still occurred in men in their forties.
  • Citing recent evidence and conference reports, the author stated that insulation workers were now a most important group at risk. The UK Asbestos Industry Regulations of 1931 did not cover them.
  • Cited from Doll (1955): of 18 lung cancer cases, 15 had asbestosis. In 1955, 80 per cent of the 100 reported cases of asbestosis with lung cancer in the world literature were in the United Kingdom.
  • Cited from Selikoff and colleagues' insulation worker study: nearly four times as many death certificates of lung cancer as of asbestosis, and evidence of fibrosis in all 39 of a consecutive series of post-mortems. The author regarded the question of lung cancer without asbestosis as unsettled.
  • The author wrote that a few tumor cases from Canadian chrysotile mining areas suggested chrysotile may also be involved, but did not think there was yet incontrovertible evidence for this
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that much greater care must be taken in future to eliminate unnecessary exposure to asbestos dust wherever it occurs. The author called for international agreement on diagnostic criteria and dust measurement, and for systematic prospective studies of workers.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The author acknowledged a lack of adequate quantitative evidence that dust suppression had reduced disease
  • The author noted that average age at death is a poor index of change in hazard because it is influenced by factors other than the attack rate

Topics

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

Related studies

• Comparative hazards of chrysotile asbestos and its substitutes: A European perspective — P.T. Harrison, L.S. Levy, et al. (1999)
• Comments on "Comparative hazards of chrysotile asbestos and its substitutes: a European perspective" — H. Savastano (1999)
• Re: "Changing attitudes and opinions regarding asbestos and cancer 1934-1965" — J. Keane (1992)
• Asbestos in Poland: occupational health problems — N. Szeszenia-Dąbrowska, B. Swiątkowska, et al. (2011)
• Malignant epithelial mesothelioma of the peritoneum: observations on a problem case — B.P. Eyden, S. Banik, et al. (1996)
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