The international chrysotile asbestos scandal

Our plain-English summary of The international chrysotile asbestos scandal, by A.C. Rothenberg (New Solutions, 1995).

The study

• Author: A.C. Rothenberg
• Journal: New Solutions
• Published: 1995;6(1):63-76
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This is not a research study. It is an advocacy document written by Amy C. Rothenberg for the Alliance Against Asbestos, a coalition of environmental, health care, labor union and asbestos-victim groups, and it reports no new medical data. It opposed a revision of a 1986 asbestos guidance document, Environmental Health Criteria 53, issued by the International Programme on Chemical Safety, an agency of the World Health Organization. The revision began after a 1992 request by France, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. The author argued that the asbestos industry, with Canada at the helm, was promoting chrysotile asbestos to developing countries and had too much influence over the revision. The document listed ten expert panel members, gave affiliations for six, and described four as having no affiliations or no known affiliations with the asbestos industry. Citing other sources, it reported that 50 percent of Canada's asbestos exports went to developing countries by 1987, compared with 16 percent in 1979. The Alliance called for work on the revision to stop and for U.S. agencies to withhold, or threaten to withhold, funding.

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: Advocacy and policy document written for an advocacy coalition and published in the journal's 'Documents' section; not a research study and contains no original data
• Who was studied: The International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) process, begun in the early 1990s, to review and update its 1986 asbestos document, Environmental Health Criteria 53 (EHC 53), including the experts and workshops involved
• Exposure: Chrysotile asbestos, especially its marketing and export to developing countries; asbestos cement pipe, roofing and sheet materials are mentioned
• Main results:
  • According to the document, the revision was undertaken after a 1992 request by the governments of France, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, although the WHO Director-General had first responded that an update was unnecessary.
  • The document listed ten expert panel participants with their affiliations. It described affiliations for six (including Robert Pigg, Director of the Asbestos Information Association of North America, who was contributing a chapter). It described four (Landrigan, Lippmann, Morgan, Nicholson) as having no affiliations or no known affiliations with the asbestos industry.
  • Citing other sources, the document stated that 50 percent of Canada's asbestos exports went to developing countries by 1987, compared with 31 percent in 1984 and 16 percent in 1979.
  • The document stated that nearly all participants at the 1993 Jersey workshop on chrysotile, whose material IPCS planned to use, were affiliated with the asbestos industry as paid consultants or employees.
  • The document reported that in 1993 the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) withdrew its membership in, and financial support of, IPCS over concern about apparent disregard for scientific objectivity.
• The authors' conclusion: The Alliance Against Asbestos supported the immediate cessation of work on the revised EHC asbestos document. It recommended that U.S. agencies withhold or threaten to withhold IPCS funding, add scientists not allied with industry to the expert panel, and create a peer-review panel of scientists with no industry affiliation.

Topics

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

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