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Asbestos: The Evil History

1st Century AD   Pliny the Elder notes that slaves working in asbestos mines die young of lung disease.

1857   The first asbestos products appear in England. Production truly begins after this, when deposits are opened up in Canada and South Africa.

1880   First asbestos plants are set up in various areas in Great Britain.

1898   "The evil effects of asbestos dust have also attracted my attention. A microscopic examination of this mineral dust, which was made by HM Medical Inspector, clearly revealed the sharp, glass-like, jagged nature of the particles, and where they allowed to rise and remain suspended in the air of a room, in any quantity, the effects have been found to be injurious, as might be expected." Reported by a female inspector in the UK Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories.

1906   Dr Montague Murray, British physician, diagnoses death of a worker from asbestos disease. Reported to British Government enquiry into compensation for industrial disease.

1918   The Prudential Insurance Company in New York refuses to sell personal life insurance to asbestos workers .

1929   Leeds Coroner calls for public enquiry after death of Turner and Newall employee. Barking Council sends deputation to Whitehall about an asbestos factory based within its borough.

1930   Merewether and Price, medical and engineering inspectors of factories, place before Parliament a report confirming the epidemic of asbestos disease among British asbestos workers.

1931   The Asbestos Industry Regulations established. These set a "safe" level that allowed one worker in three to get asbestosis after 15-19 years exposure.

1932   Turner writes to Newall complaining of the dust exposure rules saying, "We must take a small risk by stretching the regulations to suit our own ends".

1955   Richard Doll publishes evidence that asbestos causes lung cancer, 20 years after the first reports of high levels of lung cancer in asbestos workers. Doll's paper convinces the scientists.

1960   Professor Chris Wagner produces evidence of the link between asbestos and mesothelioma among South African miners and people living near the mines.

1960   The UK adopts the American "safe" standard of 1938 based on a biased sample in North Carolina. This level allows exposures 15 times the 1969 levels. Up to 1960 63 papers on the hazards of asbestos had been published in the US, the UK and Canada. The 52 independent papers showed asbestos to be a dangerous source of asbestosis and lung cancer; they were largely ignored. The 11 sponsored by industry presented virtually the opposite conclusions.

1968   The British Occupational Hygiene Society offers a safety standard for white asbestos 0.2 fibres/ml. The asbestos industry conducted a single survey at Turner and Newall's Rochdale plant and came up with this level which was incorporated into the 1969 Asbestos Regulations. Later work suggests that 1 in 10 workers would contract asbestos related disease at this level.

1970   The 1969 Asbestos Regulations were introduced.

1976   The Ombudsman, Sir Alan Marre, revealed the horrors of the massacre at Hebden Bridge. 12% of employees had crippling asbestos diseases. The Government launched an enquiry, the Advisory Committee on Asbestos.

1982   Yorkshire TV's documentary Alice - a fight for Life was first shown. Richard Peto, then Reader in Cancer Studies, University of Oxford, predicts a total of about 50,000 asbestos-induced deaths in the UK in the next 30 years or so. Nancy Tait and David Gee say this is a gross underestimate but are dismissed for being unscientific.

1983   The Asbestos (Licensing) Regulations are enacted. These came into force on the 1 August 1984. They cover the most hazardous jobs such as asbestos stripping or removal.

1985   The Asbestos (Prohibition) Regulations were introduced and later amended in 1992. They prohibit the import, supply and use of amphibole asbestos, principally blue and brown, products containing them and the spraying of asbestos and installation of asbestos insulation. Blue and brown asbestos are about 5% of the total in use.

1987   The Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations are introduced and later amended in 1992.

1995   The HSE sharply revises upwards its estimates of asbestos-related deaths in the period 1995-2025 and starts an awareness campaign amongst maintenance workers.

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