Document nx7yQy8pOJRxErMkJO74v11w

14256997033 2002-02-26 19:09:21 (GMT), page 4 3 Introduction The history ofthe corruption of literature on the health effects of asbestos is well documented.(Egilman et al. 1998;Egilman and Reinert 2000a;Hardy and Egilman 1991) In corporate-sponsored studies, scientists have manipulated data to falsely claim that there is no significant increase in the risk of lung cancer associated with asbestos work(Egilman and Reinert 2000a) For example, a letter to the editor previously published in this journal cited a 1957 study funded by the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association (QAMA) in which the researchers deleted all references to lung cancer before presenting their results.(Egilman and Reinert 2000b) In 1964, Irving Selikoff who recognized the unsound nature of many asbestos studies, organized a large conference devoted to understanding the physiological effects of the mineral.(Selikoff 1965) This conference irrefutably established the carcinogenic consequences and other health hazards ofexposure to asbestos, and undermined over sixty years of corporate cover-up by the Canadian asbestos mining industry, and American and British asbestos product manufacturing companies. It threatened to irrevocably damage the industry's position domestically and in the global market In response, Canadian mining companies, acting through its association the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association (QAMA), renewed its association with McGill University to develop contrary scientific evidence, hoping to sew doubt about the toxicity of various asbestos fiber types. While the fact that asbestos caused cancer was no longer contestable, QAMA promulgated the Anything But Chrysotile (ABC) arguments in die hope that they could maintain or expand market share for their form of this poison and avoid liability. The ABC argument implicates various substances other than Canadian chrysotile for asbestos' toxicity. In the past three decades, QAMA sponsored research at McGill University and 3