RE: Mesothelioma and lung tumors attributable to asbestos among petroleum workers. Am. J. Ind. Med. 2000. 37:275-282

Our plain-English summary of RE: Mesothelioma and lung tumors attributable to asbestos among petroleum workers. Am. J. Ind. Med. 2000. 37:275-282, by E.R. Ludwig, L. Madeksho, D. Egilman (American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 2001).

The study

• Authors: E.R. Ludwig, L. Madeksho, D. Egilman
• Journal: American Journal of Industrial Medicine
• Published: 2001;39(5):524-7
• Type of article: Comment, Letter
• Cited by: 4 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Summary of the article

In this letter, the authors responded to Gennaro et al. (2000), the latest in a series of articles on asbestos effects in petroleum refinery workers, and to the wider controversy over cancer rates in chemical and petroleum refinery workers. They argued that the petroleum and chemical industries used their own negative epidemiological studies of workers to oppose EPA and OSHA regulation and to avoid paying compensation. They stated that these campaigns were run by the same firms and individuals who had obscured the link between tobacco smoke and lung cancer. Citing industry documents, they stated that petroleum companies had recognized since the 1930s that exposures in their plants, including asbestos, could cause cancer and pneumoconiosis. They described practices that they said produced low or inverse rate ratios: excluding "contract workers", the practice of "tolling", and using general-population rather than unexposed company workers as controls for standardized mortality ratios. They noted a 1960 report, co-authored by Texaco's medical director, of two mesothelioma cases in asbestos workers at the Port Arthur, Texas, refinery. They also noted that Selikoff et al. (1979) reported many such cases among union contract workers, who had the heaviest asbestos exposures but were not included in company studies. The authors concluded that there can be no doubt that asbestos causes lung cancer and mesothelioma, and that refinery studies finding otherwise reveal problems in study design, data collection or analysis.

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 was a letter to the editor, not a research study, and it reported no new data. The authors were responding to an article by Gennaro and colleagues on mesothelioma and lung tumors among petroleum workers, which they called the latest in a series on asbestos in petroleum refinery workers. The authors argued that studies sponsored by the petroleum and chemical industries were designed to produce low rate ratios. They pointed to the use of contract workers, the practice of tolling, and comparison with the general population when calculating standard mortality ratios (SMRs). They stated that contract workers had the heaviest asbestos exposures but were left out of company studies. They described a 1960 report by Eisenstadt and Wilson of two mesothelioma cases in asbestos workers at a Port Arthur, Texas, refinery. The authors wrote that a study of asbestos-exposed workers that fails to find an increased risk of lung cancer or mesothelioma should itself be doubted. They argued that these design choices help explain why European studies are positive while American studies tend to be negative. They concluded that creating an impression of controversy lets the industries forestall regulation and avoid liability.

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 (commentary); no original data
• Who was studied: No people were studied. The letter responded to Gennaro et al. (2000) and discussed industry-sponsored epidemiological studies of petroleum refinery and chemical plant workers, mainly in the United States.
• Exposure: Asbestos in petroleum refineries and chemical plants; the letter also mentions benzene and other chemicals
• Main results:
  • The authors argued that industry studies used techniques that produced low or inverse rate ratios: the use of contract workers, the practice of tolling, and the use of general population controls for calculating SMRs.
  • The authors stated that contract workers had the heaviest asbestos exposures but were not included in company studies. They wrote that Selikoff et al. (1979) reported many of the missing mesothelioma cases in a study of an asbestos workers' union.
  • The authors described a 1960 report by Eisenstadt and Wilson (medical director of Texaco) of two mesothelioma cases in asbestos workers at the Port Arthur, Texas, refinery.
  • The authors stated that asbestos causes lung cancer and mesothelioma. They wrote that a study of asbestos-exposed workers that fails to find such an effect (an increased risk of these diseases) should itself be doubted, rather than the relationship between asbestos and disease.
  • The authors argued that these design choices help explain why European epidemiological studies are positive while American studies tend to be negative.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that American chemical manufacturers and petroleum refinery owners can forestall regulation, maintain consumer doubt and avoid liability by creating the impression that the cause-and-effect relationship is controversial.

Topics

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

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Mesothelioma, OSHA, Lung Cancer, Pneumoconiosis, rate ratio, Tolling, standardized mortality ratio (SMR), Asbestos Exposure.

Related studies

• Mesothelioma and lung tumors attributable to asbestos among petroleum workers — V. Gennaro, M.M. Finkelstein, et al. (2000)
• RE: Mesothelioma and lung tumors attributable to asbestos among petroleum workers. Am. J. Ind. Med. 2000. 37:275-282 — S.P. Tsai, L.C. Waddell, et al. (2001)
• Asbestos exposure and cancer mortality among petroleum refinery workers: a Poisson regression analysis of updated data — F. Montanaro, M. Ceppi, et al. (2004)
• Mortality and cancer morbidity in a cohort of Canadian petroleum workers — R.J. Lewis, A.R. Schnatter, et al. (2003)
• An updated study of mortality among workers at a petroleum manufacturing plant — Y. Honda, E. Delzell, et al. (1995)
• An updated mortality study of workers at a petroleum refinery in Beaumont, Texas — G.K. Raabe, K.W. Collingwood, et al. (1998)

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