Document BvR84jQy85nBrZyZOQ4M3n35E

12 Thf. Northern Miner December 11. 1975 L ` .. . ---- .... ........... T1 PLAINTIFF'S | EXHIBIT S UC-1563 Wtkrn Ulmer Asbestos and health ........... Some common questions answered ByJ.-D. CHRISTIAN Chairman Cassiar Asbestos Corp.* I recently received a letter from an associate of mine that prompted me to speak to you on the very im portant and currently topical sub ject of "Asbestos and health". Let me read you his short letter -- \ou may well have the same thoughts in mind: Dear Mr. Christian: I have been pondering over this question of the health hazards of as bestos and putting myself in the po sition of an asbestos worker or a cit izen living in an asbestosdominated community. Here are some questions that I might be prone to ask. I'm bringing these questions up as I think that The ma terial that has been put forth both by the press and by the industry is so highly technical that the true mean ing or significance of these reports is being lost on the man in the street and instead he is being fired with anxiety by the sensationalism ofjar gons that are over his head. What is asbestos? What kinds are there? What are the differences be tween the different types of fibre? Where do these fibres come from? It has been made to sound like a poison similar to arsenic. Whs is it so dangerous? What makes it so dangerous? What is happening in the body when excessive amount* of asbestos are taken in? What is hap pening to me when I have asbestos particles in my lungs or in mv stom ach or in my digestive tract? I* it dangerous to touch? Can it do me harm just by handling the material? What is the meaning of live fibres per c.c.? We have trouble as lay people vi sualizing any fibre smaller than a human hair, so when I think of five fibres I think of live short pieces of hair inside a thimble. If I was to in hale 5.000.000 c.c of air per day. then I must be consuming 25.000.000 fibre particles per day. * I rom Mr. Christian's address to share holders at the J.trd annual meeting of Cassiar Asbestos Corp. in April this sear. There hase noi been any technical developments since that dale to change the context of the report. Mr. Christian has informed I he Northern Miner. What is the weight of 25.000.000 speak of "asbestos", we are. there (2) Bronchogenic cancer - There fibres? What percentage is being fore. really talking about the fibrous is now medical evidence to indicate discharged by my bodv and what forms of rocks w hich are quite com that asbestos exposure is associated percentage is being retained? If I am mon throughout the world. The with an increased frequency oi unfortunately going to contract as- commercial asbestiform amphib- bronchogenic cancer in worker- bestosis. is there any cure for this? oles are largely found and mined in who have first developed asbestosi* What is happening to me with as- South Africa and Brazil, whereas At the present time, we do not know bestosis? the chrysotile variety of serpentine what causes the cancer, whether it i- I happen to live in Toronto. What is more widespread and is found in the chemistry of the asbestos, the fi is my mortality rate living in this citv most countries of the world. The brous nature of the material, o as compared to Thetford or Sud fact that asbestos fibres are very- something else quite unrelated. A bury or for that matter Regina? I strong (similar to high tensile steel), you are aware, there are many othe would pose the same questions with and can be broken down to ex known carcinogens, which includ. respect to particles of fibre con tremely fine dimensions (1.000th coal tar. benzidine, tobacco, viny tained in volumes of water as I did the diameter of a human hair), chloride, x-rays and even sunshine above with respect to air. makes it a very useful material for These. along with asbestos, are cur Over a lifetime, what kind of reinforcing cement, plastics and rently the subject of a great deal o weight of fibre are we actuallv talk rubber, or it can be spun or woven research. You will also be interested ing about? Is it visible to the naked into varn or cloth for clutch facings, to know that few. if any. asbestos eve. even over a lifetime? Life is fi brake linings and protective related lung cancers have bee: nite. but 1 don't want to die pre- doming.' found in workers who are non maturelv. What assurance can you offer me as a potential employee in xour operation that I am not going io unnecessarily shorten nty life? Yours sincerely. This is a very sincere letter from a deeplv concerned person. I have replied to the best of my ability and would like to read w hat I said. Dear Mr. X: Thank you for your very thought ful letter. You will appreciate that I am not a medical doctor, nor a scientist, and that the opinions and facts, that I can give you in reply to your questions, have been gleaned from studying published reports from the medical and scientific world. As you have expressed con fusion over the use of highly tech nical terms and numbers. 1 will at tempt to express myself in everyday language, even though it may be at the expense of absolute accuracy. What is asbestos? The term "asbestos" applies to all minerals which have one common attribute, namely, the ability to be separated from the parent rock in the form of a fibre. Chrysolite as bestos is the fibrous form of ser pentine rock and represents 95rf of the world's commercial fibre pro duction. Crocidilite and amosite are the most important fibrous forms of another rock known as amphibolc. These tvpes of asbestos have slightly different chemical and plnsical properties than clirxsotile and lienee different practical uses. When we Why is it so dangerous? First of all. let me say that it is not cigarette smokers and do not hav. asbestosis. This fact has been we! a poison like arsenic, as you sug gested. nor is it dangerous to touch. The health hazards that, in recent vears. have been found to exist are broadlv associated with the in documented by a number of re .sea rchers. (3) Mesothelioma -- Mesothel: oma is one of those rare am newly recognized cancer disease halation of large quantities of fibre over prolonged periods of lime, and 'and is a malignant tumor of the lit. ing membrane of the chest and ah I mean 15-20 years or more. During dominal cavity. By no means are a! processing some of the fibres be such tumors associated with a- come very fine, and without proper bestos. but where a relationship cu dust control will readily float in the be established, the exposure ha air. Naturallv. some of these w ill be largelv been crocidilite (blue a- inhaled, but a high percentage will be rapidlx removed from the respiratorv tract by ciliarv action. What are the asltcslos diseases? There are now three recognized diseases: (I) Ashosiosis - This is one vari- bestos). Far fewer cases have bee found where the exposure was lint ited to chrysotile fibre, which is iftype mined in Canada. An in vestigation of the 236 known cast of mesothelioma in Canada h> tween I960 and 1970 showed th. onlv nine were associated in an etv of the lung disease called "pneu wav with the Quebec chrysotil moconiosis". It is a progressive fi mining and milling industry. Sew brosis of the lung, which can make men had been employed and tu breathing difficult and can lead to other disabilities. Occurrences have been clearly related to prolonged in were women whose fathers workc in the industry. halation of respirable sized fibres The McDonald report over a period of many years. Those A group of verv capable Cana cases of asbestosis which are ap dian doctors and scientists hav pearing today arc the result of ex since 1966 been studying the hixtoi posure to heavy concentrations of of 11.572 persons born beiwec. asbestos dust prevalent many years IS9I and 1920. who were or are sti ago. when little was known about employed in the Quebec asbest. the risks involved. It has been mining industry. They have I'ouu shown that, when the level of ex that the industry has a lower nun posure is reduced, the incidence of talilv rate for people of com para b- asbestosis is also reduced. age than the general population Quebec. Hence, within llic indu*i: group those who had a long hist*' classifications showed a higher cfcath rate from respiratory cancer and pneumoconiosis than the others. The studies are continuing jnd the report encouragingly sug gests that a lrt risk of acquiring a clinicallv significant disease over a working life of 50 years in an as- bestos mine can he achieved by maintaining threshold levels of 2-4 million particles per cubic foot. Possibly. I should at this point tell you about the two methods of mea suring the dust. The impinger method sucks in a given amount of air and the fibre and dust particles present impinge on a treated glass slide. Thev are counted under a mi croscope and are reported as mil lions of .particles per cubic fool of air. The newer method is the mem brane filler. A measured quantity of air is pulled through a membrane filter w hich removes all the dust and fibre. In this method only the fibres are counted and hence it is difficult to relate the two results. This latter test is reported as the number of fi bres in a cubic centimetre of air. Both are highly susceptible to human error. Your thimble is a good estimate of a cubic centimetre, but it would take 2.000 fibres placed end to end to span the width of the thimble, and the thickness of the fi bres would be many times less than the human hair you envisage. The McDonald report on the as bestos mines and mills of Quebec confirms the results of other studies in the Soviet Union and Italy which indicate that the risks are much lower in the chrysolite mining and milling industry than reported from the New York insulation workers or the British naval dockyards. At our Cassiar mines most of the emissions to the atmosphere are now under control, or in the process of becoming so. Inside the build ings. in spite of extensive control measures, there are still some areas where the wearing of masks is re quired. These troublesome areas are under active study and an extensive program, designed to achieve the best possible threshold lex els. is being undertaken. The most serious obstacle in our path is the shortage of personnel. You are already aware of some of the serious effects this has had on production over the past several vears. Incidentally, in 20 years of operation we have not had one re ported case of anv of the three asbestos-relaicd diseases, but we must not be complacent in view of the iong latent period (30-45 vears) which can elapse between the first exposure and the development of mesothelioma. This, along with the Quebec studies, is the best as-tirance we can give any potential employee that things now appear to mature death or impairment of health is very remote indeed. Asbestos from our Cassiar and Clinton mines is used for the great est part in the asbestos-cement industrv. followed bx the asbestos tex tile industry. and to a much lesser degree in the manufacture of filters, compressed sheet packing, rein forced plastics, and so on. Of these, the textile industry, which until recentlv was exclusively a dry carding, spinning and weaving process, has had some comparatively serious dust problems. In the early 1930s. in a particular textile factory in the United King dom. signs of asbestosis were found in some ROT of the workers with 20 or more years' exposure. Another survev in 1957 of the same plant showed that in workers xvith 20 vears' exposure, after the in stallation of dust control, the in cidence of asbestosis had dropped toST. The lung cancer rale in work- ers in the plant exposed to pre-1933 conditions was at 10 times that of the general population, whereas it is currentlv reported to be at the same level as ihe general population. This example clearly demonstrates that xvith experienceand improved tech- j nologx asbestos can be handled .safely. A hazard to the public? You have asked about the risk of living in Toronto, as compared to Theiford or Regina. Most of the studies on the relationship of as bestos diseases to mortality rates have been carried out in the oc cupational field, and before abso- . lutely denying any public health risk, scientists agree that more data must be collected over an extended period of lime. However, a number | of studies have already been carried : out and there is to date no evidence, scientific or otherwise, to suggest that anvone in the general public has ever contacted any disease from exposure to the minute amounts of asbestos released into the commu nity air through the use. or xvearing. or weathering of finished asbestos products. As far as water is concerned, the Conference of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, held in Lyon. Trance, in the fall of 1972 - which 1 feel should represent as qualified and authoritative an ; opinion as is available -- provided the following information: Question:'"Is there evidence of an increased risk of cancer resulting from asbestos fibres present in water, beverages, food, or in fluids used for the administration of drugs?" Answer: "Such evidence, as there is. does not indicate anx risk." You might well ask at this point. "If this is so. then why the great hue and cry?" In the scientific, legal and bureaucratic world, there tire those who have a craving to push the panic button and who define "a n.i/.uiu us something xxmen max possibly occur", exen though they are unable to produce any evidence to support their contentions. No one denies that there have been -- and still are - problem areas. The w orld today is faced with many, many problems, all of which must be viewed in their proper perspective, and "panic" reporting and "panic" legislation is not the answer. The as bestos and other industries are working hard to correct the con ditions which are thought to create a health hazard. Unfortunatelx. final proof will not be available for 20. 30 or even 40 years. In the meantime, the best that any prudent person can do is to continue to research all as pects of the problem, to analyze the facts and trends as they become knoxvn. and to set goals and stand ards which xvill progressively reduce the element of risk and hopefully will finally eliminate it entirely. What is the industry doiit"? In addition to the continuous development of techniques and equipment to improve dust control, the Canadian asbestos mining in dustry. through the Institute of Oc cupational and Environmental Health in Montreal, the industrial Health Foundation in Pittsburgh, and selected hospitals and universi ties. is sponsoring or cooperating in major epidemcologieal and research projects, designed to identify and eliminate asbestos-related health risks. There is still a great deal of re search to be done. Active studies are also under way in other countries, such as England. South Africa. Italy and Russia. There is already strong cvidence to suggest that the physical aspects (i.e.. the length, diameter and stiffness) of a fibre is the real source of trouble, and not its chem ical composition. If this proves to be the case, then certain other fibrous material may also become suspect and the work currently being done on asbestos may well prove to have been a great step forxvurd in our search for a healthier environment. I sincerelv hope that what I have said so far has answered most of your pertinent questions. Before closing. I would like to add a few comments of a general nature. It has frequently been proposed that asbestos should he replaced by other types of materials. This can and has been done in some products, but in others such substi tution has been either very ex pensive. much less effective, or even impossible. To forgo the many benefits of asbestos products, sim ply on the basis of a suspicion of possible hazards, would be irra tional and unwarranted, par ticularly so when we are still un certain of the health ha/ards that might arise from many other re placement materials. Amongst insulation woixers in the United States and the United Kingdom, particularly those who worked in the dockyards during the war vears. some verv serious health conditions have been lound and ablv researched and reported upon It is a sad store. and the result ol a lack of knowledge at the time and possibly the exigencies of the xva' vears. Very valuable lessons haxc "been learned which xvill be ot gre.u benefit in solving the problems o: the present and the future. In the matter of publicizing and reporting, there is no doubt that it i> far more dramatic and exe-catchine to use headlines such as "AS BESTOS KILLS'" or for example to report "TWO MILLION FIBRES PER LITRE OT WATER'" than to report the same thing as approxi mately 4/I.OOOths of a millionth part of a gram. Let me put these fig ures to you in another xvax. If 5.000 people agreed to drink two quarts ol water containing 4.000.000 fibres per quart, every day for 80 years, then they - the 5.000 people would have swalloxved in total one gram of ashestos. which is a cubic pile a little more than half an inch on each side. Whenever I have the opportunitx. I assure you that I will urge all those who have the responsibility for re searching and reporting to the pub lic. through xvhatever media it max be. to remain as factual and fair in their research as possible and to avoid the "half truths". Excellent progress is being made in Canada in improving industrial health and safety, in controlling pollution, and in protecting the environment. Reg ulatory bodies are being established at various governmental levels and in cooperation with industry itself to measure and control to the best of our combined technical ability those conditions likelx to create a risk to the well-being of workmen and the public. The use of anv of these problem areas to solicit public sympathy and support for indi vidual political or monetary sains should be looked upon with scorn by all decent thinking people. Thank you once again for vour letter. I hope that I have put thinss in a little better perspective for you. Yours sincerely. J. D. Christian.