Industrial Uses of Asbestos

Our plain-English summary of Industrial Uses of Asbestos, by K.V. Lindell (1973).

The study

• Author: K.V. Lindell
• Published: BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF ASBESTOS (J.C. WAGNER, EDITOR), LYON: IARC SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS, VOLUME 8, PP. 323-328 (1973)
• Type of article: Conference paper
• 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 paper was a descriptive overview of the industrial uses of asbestos, not a health study. The author chaired the occupational and environmental health committee of the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association. The author explained how asbestos fibre is graded by shaking a one-pound sample over a set of screens. The paper listed grades of amosite, crocidolite and chrysotile with their main uses, and compared the tensile strength of asbestos with other materials, giving 450,000 pounds per square inch for chrysotile and 500,000 for crocidolite. It described asbestos in textiles, packings and gaskets, brake linings, paper and felt products, and asbestos cement sheets and pipes. The author argued that substitutes such as glass fibre performed worse. The author stated that there was "no conceivable health risk" in asbestos-based gasket materials, "no health risk" in handling asbestos cement sheets, and no "apparent risk to the general public" from brake linings. These are the author's statements; the paper reported no health research of its own. The author wrote that it would be useful to measure the proportion of respirable fibres in the various grades.

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: Descriptive overview of industrial uses and properties of asbestos fibre; no original health research
• Who was studied: No people were studied; the paper described commercial asbestos fibre grades (including typical Canadian chrysotile, amosite and crocidolite) and the products made from them
• Exposure: Amosite, crocidolite and chrysotile grades and their uses; tensile strengths and acid or caustic solubility were also listed for tremolite, anthophyllite and actinolite
• Main results:
  • Asbestos is graded by agitating a one-pound sample on the Quebec Standard Testing machine and weighing the fractions left on each screen
  • Tensile strength listed for chrysotile asbestos: 450,000 lbs per square inch
  • Tensile strength listed for crocidolite asbestos: 500,000 lbs per square inch
  • The author stated there was no conceivable health risk in asbestos-based gasket materials (the author's assertion; no data given)
  • The author stated that asbestos in brake linings provides toughness without any apparent risk to the general public (the author's assertion)
  • The author stated there is no health risk in handling asbestos cement sheets for covering buildings (the author's assertion)
  • The author argued that alternatives such as glass fibre performed worse in brake linings
  • The author stated that alkaline conditions in cement do not attack asbestos fibres
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that asbestos has few if any rivals among reinforcing fibres and that asbestos cement should continue to fulfil an important role in construction
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The author stated that the large number of uses prevents a complete report in a paper of limited length
  • The author noted that the proportions of respirable fibres in the various grades had not been determined

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Quebec Asbestos Mining Association, Amosite, Crocidolite, Chrysotile, Tensile Strength, Gasket, Brake Lining, Asbestos-Cement.

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