Working with asbestos in Russia

Our plain-English summary of Working with asbestos in Russia, by N. Izmerov, L. Elovskaya, E. Kovalevskiy (International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 1998).

The study

• Authors: N. Izmerov, L. Elovskaya, E. Kovalevskiy
• Journal: International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health
• Published: 1998;4(1):59-61
• Type of article: Letter
• Cited by: 8 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Summary of the article

This item contains a letter to the editor and a reply. Izmerov, Elovskaya and Kovalevskiy, of the Institute of Occupational Health in Moscow, responded to an article by Giannasi and Thébaud-Mony on occupational asbestos exposure in Brazil. They agreed that working conditions in Brazilian asbestos enterprises were poorly controlled. They cited open packs of asbestos, the use of sticks and shovels, air blasting, the involvement of pregnant women, and the absence of medical examinations. They argued that this did not justify a ban, and they criticized the article for giving no quantitative exposure measurements or epidemiologic data. They stated that Russia mined and manufactured chrysotile, that friable asbestos products were not used in Russian homes and public buildings, and that asbestos-related diseases occurred only under high exposure. They supported 'controlled use' under ILO Convention 162, said that man-made mineral fibres caused almost the same diseases, and opposed bans on social and economic grounds. In reply, Castleman wrote that expert panels had rejected the high-exposure claim. He cited an excess lifetime lung cancer risk of 5/1,000 at 0.1 fiber/cc of chrysotile. He wrote that ILO protective measures were unavailable in most countries still using much asbestos, and that cutting asbestos-cement had produced exposures in the hundreds of fibers/cc. He reported that, at a December 1997 symposium, Russian scientists had acknowledged that dust counts at Russian asbestos plants considerably exceeded official limits. He argued for substitute materials.

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 item was not a research study but an exchange of letters to the editor. Three writers from the Institute of Occupational Health in Moscow responded to an earlier article on occupational exposure to asbestos in Brazil. They agreed that conditions in Brazilian asbestos enterprises were adverse, but criticized that article for giving no exposure measurements or epidemiologic data. They stated that Russia mines chrysotile asbestos and makes chrysotile products, that asbestos-related diseases occur only under high exposure, and that they did not support asbestos bans, favoring "controlled use." In a reply, Barry Castleman, an environmental consultant, wrote that this high-exposure claim had been rejected by expert panels. The reply cited other researchers' estimate of an excess lifetime risk of lung cancer death of 5/1,000 even at an exposure limit of 0.1 fiber/cc for chrysotile. It also stated that at least 80% of asbestos used went into asbestos-cement pipes and sheets. It reported that at a 1997 symposium, former Eastern Bloc countries described mesotheliomas from Russian chrysotile, while Russian scientists reported none. The reply argued that workers should be protected based on existing knowledge.

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 published reply (opinion correspondence; no new study or data)
• Who was studied: No study population. The letters discuss asbestos workers in Brazil, as described in an earlier article, and chrysotile asbestos mining and manufacturing in Russia.
• Exposure: Chrysotile asbestos mining and chrysotile asbestos products in Russia; asbestos-cement materials in buildings and construction
• Main results:
  • The Russian letter writers stated that they did not support total or partial bans on asbestos and instead favored control measures.
  • The reply cited other researchers' estimate that, even at an occupational exposure limit of 0.1 fiber/cc for chrysotile, the excess lifetime risk of death from lung cancer would be 5/1,000. This is a cited figure from another study, not a finding of this item.
  • The reply stated that at least 80% of the asbestos used at the time went into asbestos-cement pipes and sheets.
  • The reply reported that at a December 1997 symposium, former Eastern Bloc countries reported mesotheliomas from the use of Russian chrysotile.
  • According to the reply, Russian scientists at that symposium reported no mesotheliomas.
  • The reply argued that workers should be protected based on existing knowledge rather than through further studies of chrysotile workers.
• The authors' conclusion: The Russian letter writers concluded that efforts should concentrate on implementing well-designed control measures to prevent hazardous asbestos exposure, rather than on bans. The reply rejected "controlled use" as seldom achieved.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Asbestos Exposure, Chrysotile, Friable, Controlled Use, Lung Cancer, Asbestos-Cement.

Related studies

• Working with asbestos in Brazil — J. Rangé (1998)
• The silence: the asbestos industry and early occupational cancer research--a case study — D.E. Lilienfeld (1991)
• Job tasks, potential exposures, and health risks of laborers employed in the construction industry — G. Burkhart, P.A. Schulte, et al. (1993)
• Industrial workers' health and environmental pollution under the new international division of labor: the Taiwan experience — M.S. Chen, C.L. Huang (1997)
• Sources in the history of occupational health: the Turner & Newall archive — G. Tweedale (2000)
• Protest and survive, the U.K. Construction Safety Campaign: a case study of workers' and victims' family action and legal and regulatory inaction on construction health and safety — M. Holder, T. O'Brien (2007)

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