Document qda0xjJOxEO77w41VkERE0L5x
1 '30s, that asbestos can cause disease; is that
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2 correct?
3 A Yes. The first epidemiologic studies were
4 done in the '30s, and even from the first they were
5 certainly convincing that asbestos exposure in high
6 doses could cause a diffuse fibrotic lung disease
7 called asbestosis.
8 Q Why don't we go back in time and bring us
9 forward from that time period, and just explain
10 briefly about these studies and what they showed and
11 what science and medicine did as a result of these
12 studies?
13 A The first case report in the medical
14 literature appeared in 1924 when an English physician
15 named Cooke described a young woman who died of
16 diffuse lung scarring, pulmonary fibrosis as we call
17 it medically, who had worked in an asbestos
18 manufacturing plant.
19 He rereported the same case in 1927 along
20 with a companion article by a pathologist describing
21 the findings in the lungs of diffuse scarring and also