Public health control of environmental asbestos disease: consumer products

Our plain-English summary of Public health control of environmental asbestos disease: consumer products, by B.H. Franklin (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1979).

The study

• Author: B.H. Franklin
• Journal: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
• Published: 1979;330:497-501
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 004431).

In plain English

This article is the text of a talk given on a conference panel by the author, who represented the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). It is not a research study. The author described the commission's experience with asbestos in consumer products. The commission had finalized rules banning intentionally added asbestos in patching compounds and in artificial embers and ashes. For patching compounds, the ban covered respirable free-form asbestos, including knowing additions of contaminants, and was mainly meant to stop the use of talc contaminated with asbestiform tremolite. A preliminary study for the commission found asbestos in many consumer products, which the staff's best guess put at several thousand items. The author also reported that Dr. William J. Nicholson, analyzing 22 samples of chrysotile asbestos in Puerto Rican schools and homes, found some higher than normal readings, especially in some schools. The author described several difficulties: unlabeled products, contamination, unreliable fiber-counting methods, unknown safety of substitutes, and unanswered questions about safe threshold levels. The author urged a single national cancer policy developed with scientists, industry and the public.

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: Conference panel talk (policy commentary by a regulator); no original research or data
• Who was studied: No study population. The talk describes the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's regulatory work on asbestos in consumer products, from the agency's opening in 1973 to about mid-1978.
• Exposure: Asbestos in consumer products, including patching compounds, artificial ashes and embers, talc contaminated with asbestiform tremolite, chrysotile in Puerto Rican schools and homes with asbestos/cement building materials, and sprayed asbestos in New Jersey schools
• Main results:
  • The commission finalized rules banning intentionally added asbestos in patching compounds and in artificial embers and ashes.
  • For patching compounds, the ban covered the intentional addition of respirable free-form asbestos and included knowing additions of contaminants.
  • The patching compound ban was mainly aimed at stopping the use of talc contaminated with asbestiform tremolite.
  • A preliminary study for the commission found asbestos used in many consumer products; the staff's best guess was several thousand items.
  • Products listed in the preliminary report included textiles, paper products, floor and roofing materials, paint coatings, sealants, and reinforced plastics.
  • The author reported that Dr. William J. Nicholson (Mount Sinai School of Medicine), in an analysis of 22 samples of chrysotile asbestos in Puerto Rican schools and homes, found some higher than normal readings, especially in some schools. The commission asked for a further study.
  • The commission's asbestos bans followed the assumption that no safe level of exposure to a carcinogen exists.
  • When the bans were made, the commission lacked information to judge the safety of substitute materials.
• The authors' conclusion: The author called for a single national cancer policy and for the scientific community, business, government and consumers to build a common approach to cancer.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The author stated that no inexpensive or entirely reliable test method existed to count asbestos fibers.
  • The author stated that, with few exceptions, products were not labeled to show whether they contained asbestos, which made them hard to identify.

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