Document n9kpNEZ6dOeGX8vDZY9g6aMom

Volume 6, Number 11 THE BUREAU OF NATIONAL AFFAIRS, INC. June 11,1982 Asbestos SEUKOFF CALLS FOR WIDER SAFEGUARDS; CONTROL ADEQUACY, DATA MEANING DEBATED MONTREAL -- (By a BNA Staff Correspondent) -- A ban on the use of asbestos will not be requested if "proper control'' of exposure is achieved in the wide scwmim of workplaces where fibers are found, according to Irving J. Selikoff, director of the Environmental Sciences Laboratory of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Selikoff made his remarks May 25 during the opening session of the World Symposium on Asbestos, sponsored by the governments of Canada and Quebec and the Commission of the European Communities. Industry has "done what it can" to limit exposure in v .asbestos mines and mills but now must expand its efforts to control exposure in workplaces where asbestos products are used. Selikoff told the symposium. Th remaining problems, he warned, will be found among construction workers and others who work where there are -virtually no controls, respirators, or instruction.'' Selikoff urged the asbestos industry to begin a surveil lance and notification program for exposed workers. Noting that cessation of cigarette smoking has been found tiTrontnbute to a reversal of disease risk in previously exposed worxers. ae argued that companies nave the responsibility u> inform workers o( past exposure ana warn them of the effects of smoking. In addition, he said, "virtually no ex posed workers are under surveillance," asserting that peri odic medical examinations could make early cures possible. au ol National Affairs. Inc 2/100.30 :'* Hv r Fiber Types, Uncertainties Epidemiologists have not made progress in helning sodety control the risks of asbestos exposure since the basic data were reported 20 years ago, according to John Corbett McDonald, head of the McGill University Institute of Occu pational Health and Safety. C^nchuwnsstiUmustbe mched concerning a dose-response relationship ana van'. auons between the eaects of different asbestos fiber types, he told the session. Substantial differences have been found, he said, between the effects of amosite and crocidolite asbestos and the more widely used chrysotUe type. While he has seen no evidence ol croddollte use without a hazard, "it is probably possible" to use chrysotile safely In such products as brake linings. McDonald maintained. He speculated that health effects "depend perhaps on the size and type of fiber." Remaining uncertainties also were stressed bv John Hig ginson, until recently director of the International Agency for Kcsearcb on Cancer, and Hans Weill, professor of medi cine at Tulane University. Weill maintained that diagnosis of asbestos-related dlsease "continues to be a problem after nearly a century." He argued that four of the six indicators used to detect asbes tos-related disease are~``non-specific" and commonly found in both patients with the~35ease and those without it. The medical researcher characterized diagnosis as a ques tion of "weighing the probabilities based on the total picture, including exposure." He reported that a forthcoming docu ment prepared bv the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the College of American Pathologists will recommend that, when available, both lung fibrosis and a demonstrated finding of fibers in tne lung are needed for adequate diagnosis from tissue samples. Hlgglnson, discussing science's limited understanding of the variables of cancer causation in general predicted that research in the next decade into the mechanisms of carcino genic action will aid regulators in determining.what alterna tive preventive measures s&ouItT be taken. Better compre hension of which factors initiate the formation of tumors and which promote or deter their growth may help scientists determine an "operational threshold." the conditions under which no effect can be iound, he urged. i DUP 0906848