The 1969 (UK) Asbestos Regulations - Their Economic Appraisal

Our plain-English summary of The 1969 (UK) Asbestos Regulations - Their Economic Appraisal, by R.I. Akehurst (1973).

The study

• Author: R.I. Akehurst
• Published: BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF ASBESTOS (J.C. WAGNER, EDITOR), LYON: IARC SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS, VOLUME 8, PP. 329-333 (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 described an economic cost-benefit study of the UK's 1969 Asbestos Regulations, then under way at the University of York. It gave no completed estimates of costs or benefits. The research aimed to estimate the Regulations' total costs and benefits for the UK, who gains and who loses, and how these might change if the Regulations were altered. Benefits were to come from fewer cases of asbestosis and asbestos-related cancer, valued as treatment costs avoided, working time saved, and lives and disability spared. Disease estimates were to rely on a British Occupational Hygiene Society report on chrysotile and asbestosis and a Newhouse study that also included men exposed to crocidolite and amosite. Costs included firms' dust-control precautions and switching to substitute products. No evidence had yet been found of costs from products being withdrawn without a substitute. Manufacturers had promised their cost data but would not release sales data, so no substitution cost figures had been obtained. The benefit estimate was not ready by October 1972. The exposed-population figure could be a serious underestimate, the author noted.

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: Description of planned and ongoing economic cost-benefit research (methods and progress report); no completed cost or benefit estimates reported
• Who was studied: Inhabitants of the UK affected by the 1969 Asbestos Regulations. The population at risk was to be projected from a Department of Employment and Productivity (1968) estimate for 1963, using data from asbestos manufacturing firms.
• Exposure: Asbestos dust exposure before and after the 1969 Regulations. Disease estimates were to draw on earlier published work: a BOHS report on chrysotile only, and Newhouse (1969) on men also exposed to crocidolite and amosite.
• Main results:
  • Interim finding: so far, no evidence had been found of costs from an asbestos product being completely withdrawn from production with no substitute available.
  • Progress, not a finding: enough information had been promised or was being collected to estimate the benefits of the 1969 Regulations.
  • The benefit estimate was not ready by October 1972.
  • Manufacturers had promised information on their own costs of complying with the Regulations.
  • Manufacturers would not release sales data or introduce the researchers to customers, so no substitution cost figures had been obtained.
  • Manufacturing firms declined to release the data needed to assess who gains and who loses from the Regulations.
• The authors' conclusion: The author summarised the paper as outlining the data needed, and the problems involved, in evaluating the effects of the 1969 Asbestos Regulations on the UK.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The population-at-risk estimate could be a serious underestimate, because people working near where asbestos is handled were excluded.
  • Dust count information could not be obtained from HM Factory Inspectorate.
  • The relationships between exposure and disease, especially for the cancers, are not well known.
  • The two exposure-disease sources were not strictly comparable.
  • Post-regulation dust levels were assumed to match the levels the Regulations set, on the assumption that the Regulations are complied with.
  • There was a large measure of uncertainty in the benefit estimate.

Topics

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

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