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Mass Tort Update Asbestos Update
The Myths About Asbestos
Myth number one: Asbestos cement - the fibers are "locked in"
The main use of Asbestos was in Asbestos cement products. Much official advice has been that Asbestos cement contains "only" around 10% of Asbestos fibers, and that they are safely "locked in." It has never been particularly convincing. All Asbestos mixes require sawing, drilling, transporting and handling. The "locked in" argument does not allow for routine maintenance activity, let alone removal and demolition work, damage by fire, and other types of damage.
Evidence using electron microscopes show that Asbestos cement products release fibers into the air under normal wear and tear conditions. A 1980 study showed that Asbestos in the air within 20 inches of a 17-year-old weathered Asbestos cement tile, was ten times higher than the background level found 100 meters from the same wall. Measurements in offices in Paris with Asbestos-reinforced vinyl flooring showed that under normal conditions white Asbestos levels were 50 times higher than in the air outside the building. Similarly, new Asbestos roof tiles have been found to shed Asbestos when it rains.
It is easy to disturb Asbestos. Children do it all the time. Normal air movement or vibration has been enough to cause massively elevated levels of airborne fibers in buildings. Researchers have found evidence of fiber release from undisturbed Asbestos cement. It is not only disturbance by humans that leads to peak exposures. At Ackland Burghley School, London, Asbestos boards were gnawed by vermin. There were fiber levels of 0.5 fibers/ml, 50 times the clearance limit and 1,000 times the government's estimated background level.
Victim of "locked in" Asbestos
Derrick Porter, a roofer for 12 years, died of mesothelioma aged 55. His work involved cutting, drilling, and sawing Asbestos cement sheets. The DSS originally denied him benefits. SPAID helped reverse this decision when they found millions of fibers in Mr Porter's lungs, using their electron microscope. Over 95% of the fibers were of the "locked in" white Asbestos type. The DSS now accepts that work with Asbestos cement is dangerous and there is official guidance on such work (HSE Guidance Note EH36, Work with Asbestos cement)
Myth number two: blue is deadly, white is safe
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s the Asbestos industry stressed the dangers of blue Asbestos. Their reasoning was that blue Asbestos fibers tend to be smaller. This means it is easier for blue fibers to penetrate deep into the lungs. The exact relationship, however, between size of fiber and the process of triggering a cancer is not known. Modern production methods now grind white Asbestos more finely. Also, ageing and wear and tear release smaller fibers.
If blue and brown Asbestos are more of a risk to health, it does not mean that white is safe. Britain is unusual in making a distinction between different types of Asbestos. Most countries treat all types as equally deadly. A 1985 Health and Safety Commission report by Doll and Peto said, "The four types of Asbestos that have been used in industry to any material extent, the common chrysotile with its curly fibers and the three amphiboles (crocidolite, amosite and anthophyllite) with their straight ones, all produce pulmonary fibrosis, cancer of the lung, and mesotheliomas of the pleura and peritoneum in animal experiments."
In other words in animal experiments both white and the less common types of Asbestos produce the deadly diseases seen in man. They go on to conclude the animal evidence is overwhelming that, "all types produce the specified diseases with relative ease." In making this conclusion criticize an earlier report of the Advisory Committee on Asbestos (1979).
Regarding the human evidence, they note the idea that white Asbestos does not cause so much cancer. But they say, "the evidence for this is not as clear as one would like." Their review of the studies of Asbestos workers in various industrial settings contains the following information:
Nancy Tait whose work has involved many examinations of lung tissue says, "I have never believed the claims of industry that all disease was caused by crocidolite. Usually, we find a mixture. In some cases we find just chrysotile. It is rubbish to say that chrysotile cannot cause mesothelioma. Even published studies are now agreeing that in the pleura they find more chrysotile, mainly short fibers, than other types of Asbestos."
A variation on myth two, is the idea that only Asbestos fibers longer than 5 microns cause disease. This myth is an attempt to explain why white Asbestos might be safer. It contradicts the earlier explanations that blue Asbestos is more deadly because crocidolite fibers are smaller. It is an example of the extent to which pseudoscientific theories can be invented and reinvented to confuse those who have clearly and correctly said Asbestos is dangerous and no-one should touch it. It appears that fiber for fiber long fibers do more damage when lodged in the lungs. But short fibers also cause disease.
What is completely clear is that white Asbestos produces lung cancer, mesotheliomas, and Asbestosis. It might be true that white Asbestos does not produce as many mesotheliomas as blue and brown Asbestos and that it does not produce them in the stomach lining (the peritoneum). In that strictly academic sense it is "safer". But it is irrelevant because most white Asbestos is contaminated with other potentially more dangerous types, especially tremolite, which cannot be separated. White Asbestos is lethal, more so precisely because many people do believe the myth that it is safe or safer. This belief is encouraged by the legal double standards in the UK which allow much higher levels of exposure to white Asbestos.
Myth number three: the "safe" level of exposure
The notion that there is a safe level of exposure to Asbestos has been around for a long time. These levels are not the product of objective scientific research. They reflect a hard fought defense of the profits and defense of the industry, tempered by reluctant concessions to the health of workers and the community. Nor is "safe" used in its normal sense. "Safe" becomes the number of deaths that the industry, aided and abetted by government, deemed "acceptable" at the time the standard was set.
In 1960 The UK Factory Inspectorate adopted the American "safe" level of 1938. This standard was based on one study of 541 textile workers in North Carolina, most of whom had been in employment less than 10 years, when Asbestosis generally does not show up for 20 or more years. Another 150 workers had been sacked before the study because they were suspected of having Asbestosis. This standard lasted for 30 years in the US and eight years in the UK. It permitted Asbestos levels about 15 times higher than those brought in by the tighter 1969 standard.
The Asbestos Regulations 1969 set a standard of 2 fibers/ml of air for white Asbestos in certain industries, mainly manufacturing Asbestos products, and in power stations. The level was supposed to be one at which "only" 1 in 100 workers would be at risk of Asbestosis if experiencing this level of dust over 50 years. Yet this level was effectively set by the Asbestos industry itself. The standard was provided by the professional and independent sounding British Occupational Hygiene Society (BOHS). Yet, five out of nine doctors on the Asbestos sub-committee were employed by Asbestos companies.
The BOHS 1969 level of 2 fibers/ml was based upon a survey at Turner and Newall's Rochdale plant by Dr Knox, the company doctor. He found three workers out of 290 with signs of Asbestosis. He was succeeded by Dr Lewinsohn, who reinvestigated the same workers and discovered 140 cases. He did not publicize his findings. It is possible that the company knew but there is no proof. The evidence came to light by chance in an obscure magazine article in 1972. Turner and Newall's evidence to the 1979 Advisory Committee on Asbestos, included a report which estimated there was a 1 in 300 chance of contracting an Asbestos disease. Their former company doctor was later reported as saying that the real risk was 1 in 4, and that he regretted that he did not publish these results. He received a £12,000 handshake when he left the company. In 1977 Julian Peto confirmed other reports that 2 fibers/ml put at least 1 in 10 workers at risk from an Asbestos-related disease.
BBA's evidence to the same committee, referring to a survey on their Mintex plant stated, "We have as yet had no cases of Asbestos disease in workers who have commenced their work from 1952 onwards." Yet a BOHS study, begun in 1977 and completed in 1980, revealed that 46% of workers at Mintex showed the first signs of lung damage. This was first made known to the workers by the TV program Alice: A Fight for Life and was immediately followed by a strike. These studies were influential in setting the 1983 level for airborne white Asbestos of 1 fiber/ml.
In March 1976 the Ombudsman, Sir Alan Marre, revealed the horrors at a factory in Hebden Bridge. The factory was closed in 1970. 12% of a total of 2,200 employees had crippling Asbestos diseases by 1979. The Government immediately launched an enquiry, the Advisory Committee on Asbestos, referred to above. The Asbestos industry launched a £11 million advertising campaign against the "unwarranted, biased and inaccurate" comments on the industry.
The Asbestos Information Committee was set up by the Asbestos industry. In July 1976, it produced an advertisement 20 Sensible Questions you asked about Asbestos and Health and the Answers. The Advertising Standards Authority commented, "much of the information in the advertisement was premature and unsubstantiated." The Sunday Times wrote a detailed criticism of this advertisement. In spite of this, it was an enormous success. 12,500 people replied, asking for information, including architects and local authority officials. Surveys prior to the advertising campaign showed that about 20% of the UK population thought Asbestos should be banned. Several weeks after the last advertisement appeared the number was halved.
By the mid-1980s there was a lot more pressure on the government to force Asbestos manufacturers to clean up their act. The UK did not then ban its use, the solution adopted elsewhere, most notably in Sweden where Asbestos has not been used since the early 1970s. Instead, the UK continued to push the safe level/acceptable risk argument.
The argument was advanced in a paper published in 1988, which looked at fiber levels in the lungs of Asbestos workers dying of lung cancer. In 14 lung cancer cases and all but one of the mesotheliomas there was moderate to severe Asbestosis. The fiber levels found in such workers reflect the very high levels of dust found in Asbestos factories before 1970. The 56 "controls" in this study were patients being treated in east London for lung diseases, but no occupational histories were taken so their conditions might also have been Asbestos related. This study is used by defendants in court to argue that the fiber levels found in workers now coming up for compensation are too low to be the cause of Asbestos related disease. But the reference they are using to defend themselves was biased to associate very high levels of fiber with disease and to consider lower levels as normal.
Nancy Tait has put a great deal of effort into challenging this particular study and says, "The 36 past workers were selected by the medical adviser to the former Cape Asbestos Company, Dr Kevin Browne. Muriel Newhouse sent me the raw data and this was the only way that I know that all but one of mesotheliomas and all 14 lung cancers had Asbestosis. It's not in the published paper. Then it was another couple of years before I received the evidence from America that Dr Kevin Browne is on record as saying that he chose the cases to be studied. The standards being quoted by defendants to say that they could not have been negligent because the counts are too low, are skewed."
The 1985 Doll-Peto HSC report said that if the 0.5 fibers/ml level were to be enforced so that Asbestos manufacturing workers receive an average exposure of 0.25 fibers/ml over a 20-30 year working life then, "this corresponds to a loss of expected life of only about one month when averaged over the whole workforce and the loss of about 12 years of expected life for the unfortunate individuals who die of an Asbestos-induced disease."
Real people do not die in this neat and tidy fashion. They do not share out a month between themselves. They die of Asbestos disease in their 30s, 40s, and 50s and lose a lot more than 12 years, to say nothing of the pain.
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