Medical Surveillance of Asbestos Workers (1978)

This document was testimony by the author, a physician and medical advisor to the Western States Asbestos Health Plan, to a U.S. House subcommittee in Honolulu in November 1978. It was not a formal study. The author described a voluntary examination program for insulating workers in western states, run for about 10 years and funded by the asbestos workers union and insulating contractors. About 1,800 or more men were usually eligible each year, but more than 200 rarely took the exam. The plan held records on about 1,300 current and former workers. The author said about one-fourth of those examined had definite evidence of asbestosis, often over half among men with 20 or more years in the trade. The program found only one early lung cancer. Among Local 16 members in the Bay Area, 53 of 99 deaths from 1967 through 1978 were from cancer, where about 18 were expected. These included 25 lung cancers and 11 malignant mesotheliomas. The author concluded that examinations offered education and reassurance but probably had little impact on mortality in those heavily exposed in the past.

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. It was among the papers J-M kept in its medical library without an index entry.