Re: Asbestos and cancer, 1934-1965

Our plain-English summary of Re: Asbestos and cancer, 1934-1965, by W.T. McCaughey (American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 1993).

The study

• Author: W.T. McCaughey
• Journal: American Journal of Industrial Medicine
• Published: 1993;23(3):503-4
• Type of article: Comment
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This was a short commentary, not an original study. It responded to a 1991 review by Enterline of changing attitudes about asbestos and cancer between 1934 and 1965, and presented no new data. The author found it surprising that earlier evidence did not have more impact on U.S. thinking. That evidence included a British report (Merewether, 1949) of lung or pleural cancer at autopsy in 13.2% of 235 asbestotics, together with earlier German experience. The author agreed that some factors Enterline named, such as lack of experimental evidence, may have played a role. The author added a point raised by Hueper in 1965: the large U.S. and Canadian asbestos industries had not published reports on rates of asbestosis and lung cancer. The author disagreed with Enterline that the link between malignant mesothelioma and asbestos was fairly well resolved by 1953. In the author's view, widespread recognition came only after the 1960 paper of Wagner and colleagues. The author concluded that, as current issues such as the carcinogenic potential of chrysotile are debated, it is salutary to be reminded of influences that impeded progress in the past.

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 (letter-style response to a published historical review); no original data
• Who was studied: No study population; the commentary discusses published literature and historical attitudes on asbestos and cancer from 1934 to 1965
• Exposure: Asbestos in general; chrysotile is mentioned only as a current topic of debate
• Main results:
  • The author found it surprising that a British finding (Merewether, 1949, not this article) of lung or pleural cancer at autopsy in 13.2% of 235 asbestotics, combined with earlier German experience, did not have more impact on U.S. thinking
  • The author agreed that some factors noted by Enterline may have sustained doubts, such as lack of experimental evidence
  • Citing Hueper (1965), the author pointed to the absence of published reports from the U.S. and Canadian asbestos industries on incidence, morbidity and mortality of asbestosis and lung cancer
  • Citing Hueper, the author reported that a planned survey of Canadian mines and mills under the National Cancer Institute of Canada was not adhered to. Instead it became an industry-dominated study that, in Hueper's words, yielded controversial negative results
  • The author disagreed with Enterline that the mesothelioma-asbestos relationship was fairly well resolved by 1953. The author stated that widespread recognition came only after the 1960 paper of Wagner et al., described as the first report of epidemiological significance
  • The author stated that in the 1950s the main problem was not agreeing that mesotheliomas existed but diagnosing individual cases
• The authors' conclusion: The authors' view was that, while current issues such as the carcinogenic potential of chrysotile are debated, it is salutary to be reminded of the sort of influences that impeded progress in the past

Topics

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

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