Asbestos cancers as an example of the problem of comparative risks (1978)

This symposium paper by J.C. Gilson of the MRC Pneumoconiosis Unit, Wales, was a review, not a new study. The author drew on earlier animal experiments and worker studies to compare cancer risks by fibre type and exposure level. In earlier rat experiments the author cited, injecting any type of asbestos into the pleura caused many mesotheliomas. In rats, inhaled asbestos caused few bronchial cancers and even fewer mesotheliomas, and feeding asbestos caused no excess of gastro-intestinal tumours. In a Quebec chrysotile mining and milling study, cancer risk rose only in the two highest exposure groups; the whole group showed no lung cancer excess over the general population. The author reported that mining and milling crocidolite was, by a factor of 100 or more, more likely to produce mesotheliomas than amosite or chrysotile. The author also reported that smoking and asbestos combined multiplicatively for lung cancer. The author concluded that risks to the general public were likely negligible and that stopping smoking was likely to be of paramount importance in reducing excess cancer risks in asbestos-exposed people.

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.

From J-M's medical library

This copy comes from the Johns-Manville medical library. J-M listed it in its medical library index as no. 002284.

We publish pages from a book for research and commentary: it shows what the medical literature in a leading asbestos company's own library said on the subject, and when. Our summary above is our own reading of it. The copyright stays with the publisher.