The Second International Conference on the Biological Effects of Asbestos: Report on a Visit to East Germany and England

Our plain-English summary of The Second International Conference on the Biological Effects of Asbestos: Report on a Visit to East Germany and England, by J. S. Harington (1969).

The study

• Author: J. S. Harington
• Published: South African Cancer Bulletin, 13(2), April-June 1969, pp. 68-70
• 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 was a conference report, not an original study. The author summarised papers given at the Second International Conference on the Biological Effects of Asbestos, held in Dresden, East Germany, in April 1968. Several speakers said that 'asbestos bodies' could form from other dusts such as glass, graphite and carborundum. The author concluded that these bodies are not specific indicators of asbestos exposure. Gibson and colleagues found 85 mesothelioma cases in Scottish pathology records: 80 pleural, 1 peritoneal and 4 both pleural and peritoneal. Selikoff and colleagues studied asbestos insulation workers. They reported that asbestos workers who smoked had 8 times the risk of dying of lung cancer of smokers who did not work with asbestos. Smith reported that in animals, chrysotile given intratracheally produced no tumours, benzo(a)pyrene produced 1, and the two given together produced 14. The author concluded that epidemiological studies continued to find mesotheliomas in increasing numbers and in association with asbestos. The scanned text ends partway through the closing summing-up.

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: conference report (the author's summary of papers presented by other researchers at an international conference, with the author's own list of main impressions)
• Who was studied: No study population of its own; the article covered papers presented at the Second International Conference on the Biological Effects of Asbestos, Dresden, East Germany, 22 to 25 April 1968
• Exposure: Various forms of asbestos discussed across the conference papers, including chrysotile, amphiboles, crocidolite, amosite, anthophyllite and tremolite, and commercial talc dust
• Main results:
  • Several speakers reported that 'asbestos bodies' can be found in workers exposed to other dusts such as graphite, carborundum or glass; the author concluded they are not specific indicators of asbestos exposure
  • Gibson and colleagues, in a retrospective study of Scottish pathology department records, found 85 mesothelioma cases: 80 pleural, 1 peritoneal and 4 pleural and peritoneal
  • Vigliani and Pernis (Milan) reported that among 288 asbestos workers who died over a 23-year period there were 22 lung carcinomas, 6 mesotheliomas and 21 cancers of the digestive tract
  • Kleinfeld (New York) reported that workers exposed to commercial talc dust (a mixture of tremolite, anthophyllite, serpentine and free silica) showed a fourfold increase over expected mortality from pulmonary carcinomas
  • Selikoff and colleagues followed an original group of 632 asbestos insulation workers, 370 of whom were still alive; they reported that asbestos workers who smoke have 8 times the risk of dying of lung cancer of smokers who do not work with asbestos
  • Smith reported that in animals chrysotile, but not amosite, had a co-carcinogenic effect with benzo(a)pyrene for lung carcinoma: chrysotile alone after intratracheal injection produced no tumours, benzo(a)pyrene produced 1, and the two together produced 14
• The authors' conclusion: Among the author's 14 main impressions: asbestos bodies are not specific indicators of asbestos exposure, and epidemiological studies continued to find mesotheliomas occurring in increasing numbers and in association with asbestos

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Asbestos Bodies, Asbestos Exposure, Mesothelioma, Pathology, Insulator, Lung Cancer, Chrysotile.

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