The art of perpetuating a public health hazard

Our plain-English summary of The art of perpetuating a public health hazard, by M. Greenberg (Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 2005).

The study

• Author: M. Greenberg
• Journal: Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
• Published: 2005;47(2):137-44
• Type of article: Review
• Cited by: 8 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Abstract

Objectives: Canadian chrysotile (white asbestos) could be a paradigm for those agents that are successfully exploited commercially long after they have been found to be lethal. Mining started in the late 1870s, and reports of disability and death followed in Britain (1898), in France (1906), and Italy (1908), but it was not until 1955 that Canada acknowledged asbestosis in its asbestos miners and millers. Even when shortly after asbestos was shown to be carcinogenic, Canadian Public Relations experts assisted by their scientists exculpated chrysotile by deeming other agents to have been causal.

Results: The PR techniques that have been successfully used in the defense of chrysotile are reviewed, to forewarn scientists involved in formulating public health policy for similar agents, as to the tricks that will be played on them.

In plain English

This article was a historical review and commentary by a single author. It was not a new study. It traced how Canadian chrysotile (white asbestos) stayed in use long after it was reported to harm health, and it described public relations techniques the author said were used to defend it. Sources included published reports and documents from the archives of the British company Turner and Newall, obtained through legal discovery. The author recounted reports of disability and death in asbestos workers in Britain (1898), France (1906) and Italy (1908). Canada did not acknowledge asbestosis in its miners and millers until 1955, when a mine medical officer reported 128 employees with asbestosis among some 4000 Thetford asbestos workers. The author also described earlier company reports that dismissed X-ray findings, an unpublished 1932 survey of American asbestos workers, and suppressed animal findings of lung cancer from the Saranac laboratory. The author criticized a 1958 Quebec industry-sponsored mortality study of miners and, separately, the McGill University studies of Quebec miners and millers. The author concluded that experts advising on public health policy cannot afford to be trusting.

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: Historical review and commentary (no new data collected)
• Who was studied: The historical record of the Canadian chrysotile industry and of reports on the health of asbestos miners, millers and factory workers, from the late 1870s to the 1990s. Sources included published literature and documents from the archives of Turner and Newall obtained by legal discovery.
• Exposure: Canadian chrysotile (white asbestos) in mining, milling and manufacture, including asbestos textiles
• Main results:
  • The author recounted early reports of disability and death in asbestos workers in Britain (1898), France (1906) and Italy (1908). Canada did not acknowledge asbestosis in its asbestos miners and millers until 1955.
  • In 1955 the mine's medical officer reported data collected between 1945 and 1953 on some 4000 Thetford asbestos workers. The report listed 128 employees with asbestosis, 121 diagnosed radiographically and 33 confirmed at autopsy.
  • In 1940 Johns-Manville's medical officer surveyed workers in Asbestos, Quebec, employed for more than 10 years. Of 507 radiographs, 17 were said to show early asbestosis, 5 moderate asbestosis and none advanced asbestosis. The officer dismissed these findings and concluded there had been no cases.
  • A 1932 clinical and radiological study of over a thousand workers at an American asbestos plant was not published. Its data were later found and independently reviewed: overall, 29% of workers had positive radiographs, and 43% of textile workers did.
  • An industry-funded Saranac laboratory study found an excess of lung cancers in mice. The author reported that the findings were contested by the sponsors' experts, the report was suppressed and the tissue material sequestered. Some 50 years later the material was reviewed and the malignancies were confirmed.
  • A 1958 mortality study sponsored by the Quebec industry reported that its miners did not have a significantly higher lung cancer death rate. The author criticized its design, including short follow-up, a mostly young study population, and comparison with urban rather than rural mortality statistics.
  • The author criticized the McGill University studies of Quebec miners and millers (1966 to 1992), which concluded in 1997 that exposure to less than 300 mpcf/year had been innocuous apart from a small risk of pneumoconiosis or mesothelioma. The criticism centered on the studies' failure to set up a long-term dust sampling strategy.
  • In a 1963 personal communication, the Thetford Mines medical officer told a visiting British industry physician that he had seen 126 workers with pleural plaques, 93% of whom had signs of asbestosis. This information was kept confidential.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that experts advising on public health policy cannot afford to be trusting of hazard denials. The author added that the lessons of how the asbestos hazard was perpetuated for more than a hundred years should be remembered when other agents are reviewed.

Topics

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

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Chrysotile, Carcinogenic.

Related studies

• Re: Paradis G. Ban all production and export of chrysotile asbestos [Editor's Page]. Can J Public Health 2010;101(5):352 — M. Greenberg (2011)
• The origins of public concern with taconite and human health: Reserve Mining and the asbestos case — M.E. Berndt, W.C. Brice (2008)
• Libby: the long legacy of a public health disaster — A. van Dorn (2017)
• Knowledge of the health hazard of asbestos prior to the Merewether and Price report of 1930 — M. Greenberg (1994)
• Minimising health hazards associated with derogated products and in-situ materials containing chrysotile contaminated with amphibole asbestos fibres — R.M. Howie (1999)
• The ghost of public health journalism: past, present, and future — G.S. Cooper, R.C. Brown (2010)

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