Trends in the health of the asbestos worker

Our plain-English summary of Trends in the health of the asbestos worker, by K.W. Smith (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1965).

The study

• Author: K.W. Smith
• Journal: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
• Published: 1965;132(1):685-90
• Cited by: 6 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 002509).

Summary of the article

In this conference paper, the author, from the Johns-Manville Corporation, commented on the health of asbestos workers and on how asbestos-related disease had been reported. He argued that the term "asbestos worker" was used too loosely. Insulation union members might have applied amosite, chrysotile, cristobalite-containing diatomaceous earth or glass fibre, and asbestos-cement products typically contained 50 per cent cement, 25 per cent quartz silica and 25 per cent asbestos. He called for surveys to record the fibre types and other dusts involved. He described calcified pleural plaques in four of seven Thetford mines in Quebec. He reported none in over 100,000 chest films at the company's Jeffrey Mine at Asbestos, and plaques in only one of four US plants using that chrysotile. He suggested that plaques might have causes other than chrysotile alone. Company tests of brake-lining dust from test vehicles after 5,000, 10,000 and 15,000 miles identified no chrysotile fibres, and he questioned whether asbestos bodies in lung juice were always due to asbestos. He pointed to coal tar products in the brake lining industry and to air pollution in a New Jersey city as other possible causes of cancer. Citing Knox, he noted that lung cancer in English asbestos workers had fallen from 15 times the expected rate 30 years earlier to the expected level, which he attributed to dust control. He urged support for a nationwide US Public Health Service study.

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 1965 paper is a conference commentary, not a research study, by an author from the Johns-Manville Corporation, an asbestos company. It presented no systematic methods or formal statistical analysis. The author described company observations. At the company's Jeffrey Mine in Asbestos, Quebec, where routine X-rays had been taken since 1927, over 100,000 chest films showed no calcified pleural plaques. Of four U.S. plants that used chrysotile from that mine, one had extensive pleural plaque formation and three had none. The author also passed on a report by Paul Cartier of calcified pleural plaques in four of seven chrysotile mines in the Thetford area. In company tests of brake lining dust collected from test vehicles, no chrysotile fiber was identified. The author argued that the term "asbestos worker" was used too loosely and that health findings should be recorded by fiber type. The author also argued that pleural plaques and asbestos bodies should not automatically be attributed to asbestos alone, and called for more accurate investigation and reporting.

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: Conference commentary (opinion paper) by an author affiliated with the Johns-Manville Corporation; not a formal study, no methods described
• Who was studied: No defined study population. The author referred to company records: over 100,000 chest films of employees at the Jeffrey Mine, Asbestos, Quebec, and employees of four U.S. plants (New Jersey, Illinois, California, Louisiana). Worker numbers for the plants were not given.
• Exposure: Chrysotile from the Jeffrey Mine, and chrysotile, amosite and crocidolite used in U.S. plants. Insulation materials, asbestos-cement products and brake linings were also discussed.
• Main results:
  • At the Jeffrey Mine in Asbestos, Quebec, where employees had routine X-rays since 1927, the author reported no cases of calcified pleural plaques in over 100,000 chest films.
  • The author relayed that Paul Cartier, who supervised employee health for seven mining companies in the Thetford area (chrysotile only), reported numerous cases of calcified pleural plaques in four of the seven mines and none in the other three.
  • Of four U.S. company plants using the same chrysotile from the Jeffrey Mine, one had extensive pleural plaque formation among employees and three had no evidence of pleural plaques on chest X-rays. The plant with plaques used chrysotile, amosite and crocidolite. Two other plants used all three fibers and the fourth used chrysotile and crocidolite.
  • In company testing of brake lining dust from test vehicles (samples after 5,000, 10,000, 15,000 miles, etc.), no chrysotile fiber was identified in the company's own linings or in linings from other U.S. manufacturers.
• The authors' conclusion: The author argued that the term "asbestos worker" was used too loosely and that health experience should be recorded by fiber type and by other exposures (such as cristobalite, quartz silica and coal tar products). The author argued that pleural plaques and asbestos bodies should not automatically be attributed to asbestos fiber alone. The author called for more accurate investigation and reporting and for a broad, nation-wide study by an impartial agency.

Mines named here

Asbestos mines this study is about. Each mine's page says who ran it, when it worked, and what it produced.

• Jeffrey mine, Asbestos, Quebec

All asbestos mines

Topics

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

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Johns-Manville, Amosite, Chrysotile, Asbestos-Cement, Pleural Plaques, Thetford Mines, Chest X-Ray, Jeffrey Mine.

Related studies

• Health survey of former workers in a Norwegian coke plant: Part. 1. Estimation of historical exposures — P.R. Romundstad, A. Rønneberg, et al. (1998)
• Retrospective Exposure Assessment for Occupational Disease of an Individual Worker Using an Exposure Database and Trend Analysis — D.A. Chung, R.R. Yang, et al. (2015)
• Health implications of environmental exposure to asbestos — J.C. McDonald (1985)
• Incident chronic obstructive pulmonary disease associated with occupation, industry, and workplace exposures in the Health and Retirement Study — S.R. Silver, W.A. Alarcon, et al. (2021)
• Relationship of mortality, occupation, and pulmonary diffusing capacity to pleural thickening in the First National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey — D.P. Loomis, G.W. Collman, et al. (1989)
• The health of chrysotile asbestos mine and mill workers of Quebec — J.C. McDonald, M.R. Becklake, et al. (1974)

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