Response to Letter to the Editor Regarding "Ambient Asbestos Fiber Concentrations and Long-Term Trends in Pleural Mesothelioma Incidence Between Urban and Rural Areas in the United States (1973-2012)" by Finkelstein

Our plain-English summary of Response to Letter to the Editor Regarding "Ambient Asbestos Fiber Concentrations and Long-Term Trends in Pleural Mesothelioma Incidence Between Urban and Rural Areas in the United States (1973-2012)" by Finkelstein, by K.A. Keeton, M.E. Glynn, S.H. Gaffney, et al (Risk Analysis, 2018).

The study

• Authors: K.A. Keeton, M.E. Glynn, S.H. Gaffney, J. Sahmel
• Journal: Risk Analysis
• Published: 2018;38(8):1524-1528
• Type of article: Letter, Comment
• Cited by: 3 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This is a letter to the editor, not a new study. The authors responded to Dr. Finkelstein's letter about their 2017 analysis of pleural mesothelioma rates in urban and rural U.S. areas from 1973 to 2012, which reported that rates in women stayed relatively constant. Dr. Finkelstein had raised tremolite and anthophyllite contamination in body and baby powders. The authors argued that some earlier talc tests could not tell asbestiform from non-asbestiform minerals. They argued that Gordon et al. (2014), which reported asbestos in all 50 samples, conflicted with Anderson et al. (2017), which reported no confirmed asbestos fibers in the same brand. They cited a review that found no mesothelioma cases among talc-exposed workers and talc pleurodesis patients. They cited U.S. Geological Survey data showing that cosmetic talc use fluctuated substantially since the 1930s. They reported that Dr. Roggli told them only one of more than 600 mesothelioma cases he analyzed was possibly talc related, and that it involved industrial talc. The authors concluded they found no scientific evidence for Dr. Finkelstein's hypotheses. They noted that no published epidemiological studies have evaluated mesothelioma risk from cosmetic talc exposure among consumers specifically.

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 (the authors' reply to a critical letter about their own 2017 article); no new data were collected
• Who was studied: No new population studied; the letter defends the authors' earlier analysis of pleural mesothelioma incidence in urban and rural areas of the United States, 1973 to 2012
• Exposure: Ambient (background) asbestos, and possible asbestos exposure from cosmetic talc (body and baby powders) said by Dr. Finkelstein to contain tremolite and anthophyllite
• Main results:
  • The authors stated, citing Rohl and Langer (1979), that the methods in Rohl et al. (1976) could not distinguish asbestiform from non-asbestiform mineral habit
  • The authors noted that Gordon et al. (2014) reported asbestos fibers in all 50 talcum powder samples. They argued that the method used differed from current USP talc testing methods
  • The authors noted that Anderson et al. (2017), testing the same brand, reported no confirmed asbestos fibers and one fiber classified as ambiguous
  • The authors cited Finley et al. (2017), which looked at occupationally exposed talc cohorts and talc pleurodesis patients and found no cases of mesothelioma
  • The authors cited a 1985 FDA risk assessment, which concluded that the worst-case risk from asbestos in cosmetic talc would be less than the risk from environmental background exposure
  • The authors stated that U.S. Geological Survey data show U.S. cosmetic talc production and use fluctuated substantially. In contrast, their own earlier analysis found female pleural mesothelioma rates relatively constant over time
  • The authors reported that Dr. Roggli told them that, of more than 600 mesothelioma cases he analyzed, only one was possibly talc related. That case involved industrial, not cosmetic, talc
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that they could not identify scientific evidence supporting Dr. Finkelstein's hypotheses, and that his letter did not change the conclusions of their 2017 article
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The authors acknowledged that no epidemiological studies have been published on mesothelioma risk from cosmetic talc exposure among consumers specifically

Topics

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

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Pleural Mesothelioma.

Related studies

• Letter Concerning: Glynn ME, Keeton KA, Gaffney SH, Sahmel J. Ambient Asbestos Fiber Concentrations and Long-Term Trends in Pleural Mesothelioma Incidence Between Urban and Rural Areas in the United States (1973-2012). Risk Analysis 2018;38(3):454-471 — M.M. Finkelstein (2018)
• Authors' response to Finkelstein's letter to the editor regarding our recent review of ambient airborne asbestos concentrations (Abelmann et al., 2015) — A. Abelmann, M.E. Glynn, et al. (2016)
• Author's response to: "Letter to the Editor" regarding content of "Mesothelioma from asbestos exposures: Epidemiologic patterns and impact in the United States" by R. A. Lemen, Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B 2016; 19: 250-265 — (2017)
• Response to a letter to the editor by Dr. Murray M. Finkelstein regarding the article by Finley et al. (2012) — B.L. Finley, J.S. Pierce, et al. (2013)
• Letter to the editor on commentary: malignant mesothelioma incidence among talc miners and millers in New York state by M M Finkelstein — R.P. Nolan, J.F. Gamble, et al. (2013)
• Response to Letter to the Editor from Egilman, Castleman and Bird (2020) concerning Bullock (2020), Perspectives on the knowledge of asbestos disease in the United States - what was known, by whom and when — W.H. Bullock (2020)

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