Re: "Attitudes and opinions regarding asbestos and cancer 1934-1965"

Our plain-English summary of Re: "Attitudes and opinions regarding asbestos and cancer 1934-1965", by S. Langård (American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 1992).

The study

• Author: S. Langård
• Journal: American Journal of Industrial Medicine
• Published: 1992;22(2):267-9
• Type of article: Comment
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This is a commentary, not a research study. The author responded to a 1991 article by P.E. Enterline on why scientists were slow to accept that asbestos exposure causes lung cancer. In the author's reading, Enterline showed that American scientists may have lost as much as two decades of prevention by dismissing German (1941) and British (1955) evidence. The author's lesson was that evidence should be judged regardless of its authors' country. The author cited earlier estimates that, in Norway, 20-30% of new male lung cancer cases in "the last and this decade", counted from the article's 1992 publication, or 150-175 per million males, would not have developed without asbestos exposure in the 1940s to 1960s. The author said a 1940 review by the Norwegian radiologist Wolff did not lead to immediate prevention in all Nordic countries. As a parallel, the author noted that German authorities recognized lung cancer in some chromate workers as occupational in 1936, while other countries took three to four decades. The author also proposed 1 to 3 hour individual exposure interviews to estimate personal risk. No new data were presented.

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) on a 1991 historical review by P.E. Enterline; no original data
• Who was studied: No study population. The commentary discusses Enterline's historical analysis of how scientists, especially American scientists and textbook authors, accepted the link between asbestos and lung cancer from 1934 to 1965.
• Exposure: Airborne asbestos and lung cancer, in general terms with no fiber type named. Hexavalent chromium compounds (chromates) are discussed as a parallel example.
• Main results:
  • The author's reading of Enterline: American scientists, and so the American people, may have lost as much as two decades of prevention by dismissing the German and British evidence until U.S. causality evidence was compiled.
  • These are estimates the author cited from earlier work, not new findings. In Norway (population 4.2 million), 20-30% of new lung cancer cases in males occurring in 'the last and this decade' (the decade before and the decade of this 1992 commentary), that is 150-175 new cases per million males, would not have developed without asbestos exposure in the 1940s to the 1960s.
  • A further estimate the author cited: counting all asbestos-related causes of death in Norway, exposure in that period may have resulted in 6,000-8,000 yearly lost years of life per million males in 'the last and this decade'.
  • A 1940 review by the Norwegian radiologist Wolff was available to Nordic scientists. In the author's view, Nordic scientists were still not quicker than U.S. scientists to accept the evidence.
  • Chromate parallel: in December 1936 German health authorities recognized lung cancer as occupational in workers exposed to certain hexavalent chromium compounds. Other countries accepted this three to four decades later.
  • The author proposed 1 to 3 hours of intense individual interviewing on lifetime exposures, to be used to estimate an individual's projected risk over the next 10-30 years.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that new scientific evidence should be judged entirely independently of the country the scientist works in at the time of publication.

Topics

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

Related studies

• Re: "Attitudes and opinions regarding asbestos and cancer 1934-1965" — D.O. Hourihane (1992)
• Changing attitudes and opinions regarding asbestos and cancer 1934-1965 — P.E. Enterline (1991)
• Re: Historical reasons for attitudes and opinions regarding asbestos and cancer, 1934-1965 — M. Corn, J.K. Corn (1993)
• Re: "Changing attitudes and opinions regarding asbestos and cancer 1934-1965" — R. Ehrlich, J. Myers (1992)
• Re: Attitudes and opinions regarding asbestos and cancer, 1937-1965 — D.J. Kilpatrick, M. Kottek (1994)
• Re: Attitudes and opinions regarding asbestos and cancer, 1934-1965 — J.M. Harrington (1993)

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