The Asbestos Peril

Our plain-English summary of The Asbestos Peril (1978).

The study

• Published: Newsweek, May 8th 1978
• Type of article: Trade 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 is a Newsweek news article from May 8, 1978, not a research study. It reported that the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) had issued a warning to between 8 million and 11 million Americans who had worked with asbestos since the start of World War II. According to the article, the warning grew out of a study by a New York City specialist in environmental disease. That study surveyed 1,000 men who had worked for at least fifteen years at a shipyard in Groton, Connecticut. Half of them showed chest X-ray abnormalities typical of occupational asbestos exposure, including workers who did not directly handle asbestos. The article stated that asbestos workers who smoke have a lung cancer risk 92 times higher than smokers in other industries, and that about 7 per cent of asbestos workers contract asbestosis. It said another 7 to 10 per cent develop mesothelioma. The article also described an investigation of 626 wives and children of men from a Paterson, New Jersey, asbestos factory. One-third of these relatives had been found to have asbestosis.

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: News magazine article reporting an HEW warning and summarizing figures from studies; not a research study itself
• Who was studied: The warning was aimed at 8 million to 11 million Americans who had worked with asbestos since the start of World War II. The study behind it surveyed 1,000 men who had worked at least fifteen years at a shipyard in Groton, Connecticut.
• Exposure: Occupational asbestos exposure, including shipyard work, asbestos mining and processing, insulation work, building demolition, and brake- and clutch-lining repair. No fiber types were named.
• Main results:
  • In the Groton shipyard survey, half of the men showed chest X-ray abnormalities typical of occupational asbestos exposure.
  • Shipyard workers who did not directly handle asbestos showed the same findings.
  • The article stated that, among asbestos workers who smoke, the risk of lung cancer is 92 times higher than for smokers in other industries.
  • The article stated that about 7 per cent of asbestos workers contract asbestosis.
  • The article stated that another 7 to 10 per cent of asbestos workers develop mesothelioma.
  • The article stated that asbestos exposure doubles the risk of death from gastrointestinal cancers.
  • An investigation was monitoring 626 wives and children of men who had worked in a Paterson, N.J., asbestos factory before it closed in 1954.
  • In the Paterson investigation, one-third of the relatives had been found to have asbestosis since the study began four years earlier.
  • The scientist quoted said there was no evidence that asbestos constitutes a serious health hazard for the general public.
• The authors' conclusion: The article concluded that how big a risk current asbestos workers face will remain unclear until current protection standards have been in effect for at least fifteen years.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Chest X-Ray, Asbestos Exposure, Lung Cancer, Mesothelioma.

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