Carcinogenic Potential of Silica Compounds (1978)

This 1978 book chapter was largely a review of cancer linked to asbestos. It drew heavily on mortality studies by the author's group and added data on a cohort of silica-exposed tunnel workers. Among 17 800 asbestos insulation workers in the United States and Canada followed from 1967 to 1975, 427 lung cancer deaths occurred where 92.28 were expected, and mesothelioma caused 7.19 % of all deaths. Among amosite asbestos factory workers, there were 83 lung cancer deaths against 12.45 expected. Among 932 New York City tunnel workers exposed to quartz-rich rock dust, deaths from all cancers were about as expected. Lung cancer deaths were 21 against 13.15 expected, and pulmonary tuberculosis deaths were 11 against 2.22 expected. No mesothelioma was found among the silica-exposed men. The author noted that smoking histories were not available for the tunnel workers, so smoking could explain the small lung cancer increase. The author concluded, "with reasonable confidence," that silica does not lead to cancer merely because of its elemental nature or its potential for fibrosis.

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.

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.