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Incredible Story of How Tens of Thousands of American Men and Women Die Each Year of
Preventable Industrial Disease (New York: Viking).
21
McCulloch & Tweedale, Op Cit. The authors give a detailed analysis of the lengths to which
corporations, with the support of governments, insurance companies and members of the medical
profession have gone to question the considerable scientific literature regarding the hazards of
asbestos to their employees and ultimately the end users; all in an attempt to maintain their markets.
Asbestos mining continues in Russia: See Jego, M. (2010), 'Wrapped in the flax of denial', Guardian
Weekly, 1-7 January. Jego’s article paints a very similar picture to that of the Wittenoom asbestos
mine. South American countries continue to fight against the marketing strategies of large asbestos
corporations: See Kazan-Allen, Op Cit. Until late 2012 Canada marketed asbestos in Third World
countries: See Ruff, Op Cit. There are three thousand products which contain asbestos: See Hills, Op
Cit., pp. 9-10 and McCulloch & Tweedale, Op Cit. pp 79, 119-120.
22
McCulloch & Tweedale, Op Cit. p.14. The authors ask why the publicity about mesothelioma in
1960 did not mark a sea-change. They point out that one would have expected world asbestos
production to decline. In fact it increased after 1960. Between 1900 and 2004, world asbestos
production was approximately 182 million tonnes, of which 143 million tonnes were produced after
1960. These statistics are in Virta, R. L. (2006), 'Worldwide Asbestos Supply and Consumption Trends
from 1900 through 2003', in USGS (ed.), p. 16.
22
The first reported death from asbestosis occurred in the textile industry in England at
the turn of the twentieth century, but was only first reported in 1906 by Dr Montague
Murray.
23
By the 1920s asbestosis was occurring in factories and mines in Africa, Europe
and North America.
24
In 1922 Australia’s Commonwealth Health Department published an
index of health hazards in industry which included asbestos.
25
By the 1930s the association
between asbestos exposure and asbestosis was confirmed and the development of cancer
also noted.
26
In 1935 the Department of Labour in Western Australia was aware of the 1930
British report by Merewether on the effects of asbestos dust as it dealt with several cases of
asbestosis in James Hardie’s asbestos factory in Rivervale.
27
Case reports of asbestos-
related cancer were published in England, Germany and the United States by the 1940s in
reviews of industrial medicine, cancer research and pneumoconiosis.
28
Dr Enrico Vigliani’s
study on asbestos textile factories in Turin, commissioned by the Italian government in the
1930s, also reported on the health consequences to workers.
29
In the 1940s and 1950s
reports of mesothelioma began to appear in the research literature.
30
Wagner’s seminal
paper in 1960 reported the development of mesothelioma in 33 black workers at the
Northwest Cape blue asbestos mine in South Africa. It was the first of many papers on
mesothelioma, including Dr McNulty’s 1962 paper on the first case at Wittenoom in 1960.
31
Subsequent data from Australian studies indicate that all states, and in particular, Western
Australia, have incidence rates which are high in comparison with other countries.
32
The
highest incidence figures have been in males in countries mining blue asbestos: Australia
and South Africa.
33
23
Castleman, Op Cit. p. 3.
24
Ibid. Chapter 1.
25
Motley Rice Plaintiff’s Exhibit no.10651: Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Health, 1922,
An Index to Health Hazards in Industry.
26
Castleman, Op Cit. Chapter 2.
27
Motley Rice Plaintiff’s Exhibit no.10653: Workers’ Compensation Act, Dangerous Industrial Diseases
and Diseases Arising Therefore, 8 March 1935.
28
Castleman, Op Cit, p. 49.
29
Vigliani, E. (1940), 'Studio sull'asbestosi nelle manifatture di amianto', (Stabilimento Tipografico
Giovanni Capella-Ciriè). Trans: Study on asbestosis in asbestos factories.
30
Castleman, Op Cit. p. 136.
31
McNulty (1962), Op Cit.
Wagner, C., Sleggs, C. A. & Marchand, P. (1960), 'Diffuse Pleural
Mesothelioma and Asbestos Exposure in the North West Cape Province', British Journal of Industrial
Medicine, 17 (4), pp. 260-71.
32
Xu, Armstrong, Blundson et al. Op Cit. Threlfall, Thompson & Olsen, Op Cit. p.39.
33
Threlfall, Thompson & Olsen, Op Cit. p. 39.
23
The industry sponsored research into the effects of asbestos. What they did not do
was halt production, despite the growing numbers of workers developing an asbestos-related
disease.
34
In 1943 the Colonial Sugar Refining Company became part of the global asbestos
industry with its purchase of the Wittenoom mine.
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