Asbestos in the work place and the community

Our plain-English summary of Asbestos in the work place and the community, by M. L. Newhouse (1973).

The study

• Author: M. L. Newhouse
• Published: Annals of Occupational Hygiene, Vol. 16, Pergamon Press (printed in Great Britain) (1973)
• Type of article: Journal article
• Our copy: from Johns-Manville's own medical library. The article is still under copyright, so we describe it here rather than post it.

In plain English

This article was the author's overview of asbestos in the workplace and the community. It combined a review of earlier research with an update of the author's own mortality study of an East London factory using crocidolite, amosite and chrysotile. That study followed men who started work between April 1933 and the factory's closure in 1968, and women first employed between 1936 and 1942. It compared their deaths with those expected in England and Wales, and graded exposure as low-moderate or severe. With follow-up extended to 31 March 1970, men with low-moderate exposure and short employment showed no excess mortality. After more than 25 years' observation, even low to moderate exposure was followed by excess deaths from cancer of the lung and pleura and other cancers. The mesothelioma rate rose with both severity and length of exposure. On community effects, it cited Wagner's South African mine-field cases and the author's earlier London Hospital series, where 11 of 76 mesothelioma cases had no asbestos contact except living near a factory. The author stressed adequate control wherever asbestos is mined or manufactured.

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: Review of asbestos hazards at work and in the community, including an updated analysis of the author's own mortality (cohort) study of one factory's workers
• Who was studied: Male workers who started at an East London asbestos factory between April 1933 and its closure in 1968, and a smaller cohort of women first employed there between 1936 and 1942. Their deaths were compared with expected deaths for England and Wales. Follow-up ran to 31 March 1970.
• Exposure: Work at a factory that was a heavy user of crocidolite asbestos as well as amosite and chrysotile. Dust exposure was graded as low-moderate (non-production workers and those working with low proportions of asbestos in the product) or severe (openers, disintegrators and production workers).
• Main results:
  • Among the men, no excess mortality was found in the group with low-moderate exposure and short periods of employment at the factory.
  • Even with low to moderate exposure, there was excess mortality from cancer of the lung and pleura and from other cancers after more than 25 years' observation.
  • The mesothelioma rate increased with both severity and length of exposure.
  • The occurrence of these and other tumours appeared to be dose-related.
  • Reviewed earlier work by others: in Wagner and colleagues' 1960 South African series, 11 of 33 patients with mesothelial tumours had no occupational exposure but had been born and lived some years on the asbestos mine fields.
  • The author's own earlier London Hospital series with Thompson (1965): of 76 cases, 11 had no occupational or other contact with asbestos but had lived within half a mile of an asbestos factory. This was significantly more than in the control series.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that there may be no critical level at which cancer risk can confidently be said to be eliminated, but that strict factory hygiene and dust suppression may minimise the risk. The author stressed the importance of adequate control in all countries where asbestos is mined or manufactured.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Crocidolite, Amosite, Chrysotile, Pleura, Mesothelioma.

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