Occupational and Nonoccupational Exposures to Asbestos

Our plain-English summary of Occupational and Nonoccupational Exposures to Asbestos, by W.C. Hueper (1965).

The study

• Author: W.C. Hueper
• Published: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (1965)
• 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 by W.C. Hueper of the National Cancer Institute was a review and commentary, not a new study. The author surveyed published reports on how people come into contact with asbestos dust at work and outside work. The article listed the jobs, products and population groups involved, including miners, millers, asbestos cement and textile workers, insulators, residents near asbestos plants, and people living in houses with asbestos insulation. The author noted that chrysotile made up approximately 95 per cent of asbestos produced, and that world production rose from 500 tons in 1880 to over 2,000,000 tons in 1958. The author estimated that between 50,000 and 100,000 people in the United States had manifest, suspected or possible contact with asbestos. The author's conclusions were that the main exposed worker groups were in mining and milling, asbestos cement and plaster, insulation, and textile manufacture. The author also concluded that information on exposed workers and on asbestosis and asbestos cancers was most fragmentary, especially in the United States and Canada, and that defective workmen's compensation laws left asbestos workers inadequately protected.

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 and commentary on sources and types of occupational and nonoccupational asbestos exposure; no new data collected
• Who was studied: Occupational groups (miners, millers, textile, cement, insulation, construction and other workers) and nonoccupational groups (residents near asbestos plants, people along trucking routes, inhabitants of houses with asbestos insulation), as described in published reports from various countries
• Exposure: Inhaled asbestos dust, mainly chrysotile, which the author stated made up about 95 per cent of asbestos produced. Amosite and crocidolite were described as of comparatively minor and regional importance.
• Main results:
  • The author estimated that the total number of individuals in the United States with manifest, suspected and possible contact with asbestos should run between 50,000 and 100,000.
  • World asbestos production, as reported in the article: 500 tons in 1880, 330,000 tons in 1925, 446,000 metric tons in 1938, and over 2,000,000 tons in 1958.
  • Canada was described as the main producing country and the United States as the principal consuming country.
  • The author reported that compensability of asbestosis was denied in North Carolina in 1937 in a suit against the Carolina Asbestos Company, and that the decision was confirmed on appeal by the Supreme Court of North Carolina.
  • The author concluded that because workmen's compensation laws are defective in many countries and states, the protection of asbestos workers is inadequate.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that the principal worker groups exposed to respiratory contact with asbestos work in asbestos mining and milling, in the production and use of asbestos cement and plaster, in asbestos insulation, and in asbestos textile manufacture.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The author stated that information on the number and variety of exposed workers and on the occurrence and incidence of asbestosis and asbestos cancers among them is most fragmentary in all countries, especially in the United States and Canada.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Asbestos-Cement, Insulator, Chrysotile.

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