Working with asbestos in Brazil

Our plain-English summary of Working with asbestos in Brazil, by J. Rangé (International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 1998).

The study

• Author: J. Rangé
• Journal: International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health
• Published: 1998;4(1):56-8
• Type of article: Letter
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This item is not a research study. It is a letter to the editor from the president of the Brazilian Asbestos Association (ABRA), responding to a 1997 article by Giannasi and Thébaud-Mony on occupational asbestos exposure in Brazil. The article's authors replied in the same item. The letter stated that chrysotile asbestos had been used in Brazil mainly in fiber cement. It said ABRA's own research found that 78.2% of fiber cement companies operated within 0.1 fiber/cc. It also said a tripartite agreement set a workplace limit of 0.45 fiber/cc, and that the manufacturing industry had seen no illness caused by asbestos since 1980. The letter's author concluded that European asbestos bans may not be appropriate for Brazil. The reply said ABRA's exposure data were produced by industry without government or worker participation. It cited preliminary data from an ongoing study of ex-workers of an asbestos-cement factory in Osasco: of 645 examined, there were 57 confirmed cases of asbestosis, 130 of pleural plaques and 82 of impaired respiratory function. The reply also disputed the claim that the U.S. EPA had approved chrysotile use.

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, with a reply from the authors of the article it criticized; not a research study
• Who was studied: No study population. The letter concerns the Brazilian asbestos industry, which it describes as 27 cement factories with about 8,000 workers. The reply cites preliminary data on 645 ex-workers of an asbestos-cement factory in Osasco.
• Exposure: chrysotile asbestos, used in Brazil mainly in fiber cement production; the letter also discusses mining and brake manufacturing
• Main results:
  • The letter's author stated that ABRA's own latest research found 78.2% of fiber cement companies operating within 0.1 fiber/cc.
  • The letter stated that the tripartite agreement between workers, industry and government sets a maximum workplace limit of 0.45 fiber/cc.
  • The letter claimed there had been no illness caused by asbestos in the manufacturing industry since 1980.
  • The reply stated that ABRA's exposure data were produced by the asbestos industry without participation by the government or worker organizations.
  • The reply cited an international environmental audit of the SAMA mine that found 35% of the work areas analyzed had inadequate dust control.
  • The reply cited preliminary data from an ongoing study at Osasco. Among 645 ex-workers examined to date, there were 57 confirmed cases of asbestosis, 130 cases with pleural plaques and 82 cases of impaired respiratory function.
  • The same preliminary Osasco data included eight cancer fatalities (four pulmonary and four gastrointestinal), with another 20 cancer deaths under investigation.
  • The reply stated that Brazil's Cancer Registry covers less than 5% of the country's population.
  • The reply disputed the letter's claim that the U.S. EPA had approved chrysotile use. It said the EPA tried to ban asbestos but an industry court challenge overturned the ban.
• The authors' conclusion: The letter's author concluded that asbestos bans adopted in some European countries may not be appropriate in Brazil. The reply's authors rejected the letter's arguments.

Related studies

• Working with asbestos in Russia — N. Izmerov, L. Elovskaya, et al. (1998)
• The silence: the asbestos industry and early occupational cancer research--a case study — D.E. Lilienfeld (1991)
• High frequency and severity of pleural changes in former workers exposed to anthophyllite associated with other contaminating amphibole asbestos in Brazil — R.F. Macedo, E.M.F.P. Cerqueira, et al. (2019)
• Revising the British Occupational Hygiene Society asbestos standard: 1968-1982 — M. Greenberg (2006)
• Non-malignant consequences of decreasing asbestos exposure in the Brazil chrysotile mines and mills — E. Bagatin, J.A. Neder, et al. (2005)
• Job tasks, potential exposures, and health risks of laborers employed in the construction industry — G. Burkhart, P.A. Schulte, et al. (1993)

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