Re: Call for an International Ban on Asbestos: Why not ban asbestos?

Our plain-English summary of Re: Call for an International Ban on Asbestos: Why not ban asbestos?, by J.C. McDonald (American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 2000).

The study

• Author: J.C. McDonald
• Journal: American Journal of Industrial Medicine
• Published: 2000;37(2):235
• Type of article: Letter
• Cited by: 3 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Summary of the article

In this letter to the editor, written in July 1999, the author responded to a call by the Collegium and the journal for an international ban on asbestos. He compared such bans to witch burning, prohibition and McCarthyism, which he described as sometimes counter-productive. He stated that the substantial and still rising mortality from asbestos-related cancers in most industrialized countries resulted from uncontrolled use of asbestos 20 to 60 years earlier, and that crocidolite and amosite were disproportionately responsible. Because neither of these amphibole fibers had been mined for many years, he argued that the call for a ban in practice meant chrysotile. He stated that abundant epidemiological evidence showed that chrysotile, even when contaminated with fibrous tremolite, which he called the main culprit, could be mined and used safely for cement and friction products with effective dust control. He described the experimental evidence on man-made fiber substitutes as less assuring because most types are more biopersistent than chrysotile. He argued that wealthy countries that manufacture and export substitutes had a right to prohibit asbestos imports. He argued that countries that mine chrysotile, such as Zimbabwe and Brazil, had the same right to use it, noting that these countries may have little or no tremolite contamination and have pressing needs for asbestos-cement products. He concluded that chrysotile free from amphiboles is a remarkably safe and valuable natural resource whose exploitation should be encouraged.

PubMed has no abstract for this study, and the article doesn't print one. We wrote this summary from the full article with the help of AI. It is not the authors' wording.

In plain English

This letter to the editor is not a research study and reports no new data. The author replied to a call by "the Collegium" and the journal for an international asbestos ban. The author argued that rising asbestos-related cancer deaths in most industrialized countries resulted from uncontrolled use 20 to 60 years earlier, for which crocidolite and amosite were disproportionately responsible. Because neither amphibole had been mined for many years, the author wrote, a ban would mean chrysotile. The author stated that abundant epidemiological evidence shows chrysotile, even contaminated with fibrous tremolite, can be mined and used safely for cement and friction products with effective dust control. The letter cites no studies for this. The author wrote that experimental evidence on man-made fiber substitutes is less assuring because most types are more biopersistent than chrysotile. The author wrote that wealthy countries have a right to prohibit asbestos imports and that less fortunate countries mining chrysotile, such as Zimbabwe and Brazil, have the same right. The author concluded that chrysotile free from amphiboles is a remarkably safe and valuable natural resource.

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: Letter to the editor (opinion piece); no study was carried out and no data are reported
• Exposure: Asbestos in general, and specifically chrysotile, which the author said a ban would in practice target. Crocidolite, amosite, tremolite contamination and man-made fiber substitutes are also discussed.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that chrysotile free from amphiboles is a remarkably safe and valuable natural resource, and that its search and exploitation should be encouraged rather than banned.

Topics

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

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Crocidolite, Amosite, Amphibole Group, Chrysotile, Tremolite, Friction Products, Dust Control, Tremolite Contamination.

Related studies

• Re: Call for an International Ban on Asbestos: Trust me, I'm a doctor — M. Greenberg (2000)
• Re: Call for an International Ban on Asbestos — C. Maltoni (2000)
• Re: Call for an International Ban on Asbestos: Why not ban asbestos? — B. Castleman (2000)
• RE: Call for an International Ban on Asbestos: Why asbestos should be banned — R.A. Lemen (2000)
• Re: Call for an International Ban on Asbestos — W.J. Nicholson (2000)
• South African asbestos: production, exports, and destinations, 1959-1993 — J.S. Harington, N.D. McGlashan (1998)

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