Pollution Invites Disease

Our plain-English summary of Pollution Invites Disease, by B.W. Carnow (1970).

The study

• Author: B.W. Carnow
• Published: July 4th 1970
• 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 1970 magazine essay by Bertram W. Carnow was a commentary, not a research study, and it reported no new data. The author argued that physicians should consider physical and chemical causes of disease. The essay described, in general terms, evidence linking air pollution to illnesses such as heart disease, lung cancer, emphysema and asthma. It also discussed water contaminants, and the author called several suggested long-term effects speculative. Asbestos was mentioned only briefly. The author noted that lung cancer had been found with abnormally high frequency in workers exposed to uranium, nickel, chromates and asbestos, and that even more workers developed lung cancer if they smoked cigarettes. The author also wrote that asbestos was being found in the lungs of city dwellers with no known exposure, and attributed this to brake linings and to asbestos sprayed as insulation at construction sites. The article gave no data for this. The author called knowledge of pollution's health effects relatively primitive. The author nonetheless concluded that the evidence was sufficiently incriminating to state that pollution was a significant contributory cause of the major diseases limiting American longevity.

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: magazine essay / commentary presenting the author's views; not an original study and no new data
• Exposure: Air and water pollution in general (for example sulphur dioxide, particulates, auto exhaust, carbon monoxide, lead, radioactive materials, mercury). Asbestos is mentioned briefly, as an occupational cause of lung cancer and as a contaminant attributed to brake linings and sprayed insulation.
• Main results:
  • Statement by the author, not a finding of this article: lung cancer had been found with abnormally high frequency in workers exposed to uranium, nickel, chromates and asbestos, and more workers developed lung cancer if they smoked cigarettes.
  • Statement by the author, with no supporting data given: asbestos was being found in the lungs of city dwellers with no known exposure. The author attributed this to asbestos in brake linings and to asbestos sprayed as insulation at construction sites.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that the evidence was sufficiently incriminating to state that a relationship between pollution and disease exists, and that pollution is a significant contributory cause of the major diseases preventing increased longevity of Americans.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The author stated that knowledge of the effects of pollutants on health was relatively primitive.
  • The author stated that studying the health effects of pollutants is difficult, so sharp conclusions are hard to draw.
  • For several water contaminants, the author stated that the effects of long-term, low-level exposure could only be speculated about.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Lung Cancer, Emphysema, Brake Lining.

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