Clinical Survey of Chrysotile Asbestos Miners and Millers in Baie Verte, Newfoundland, 1976 (1977)

Irving J. Selikoff's December 22, 1977 report to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences on a June 1976 clinical survey at the Advocate Mines chrysotile mine and mill at Baie Verte, Newfoundland, which Johns-Manville operated and which opened in 1963. With the cooperation of the United Steelworkers and Johns-Manville, 485 of about 500 current employees were examined. Fifty (10%) had chest X-ray abnormalities of the kind associated with asbestos, mostly in the lung tissue rather than the pleura. The rate rose with years of employment (5% under five years, 15% at ten years or more) and with the dustiness of the job, reaching 8 of 43 men employed ten years or more in the dustiest conditions. Selikoff warns that the long-term cancer and asbestosis risk cannot yet be predicted, and recommends better dust control, respirators, a Baie Verte Asbestos Register with long-term medical surveillance, steps against household contamination, education on smoking and dust, and control of the asbestos contamination the survey also found in the community.