Bill Nicholson's report on asbestos cement houses is relevant for India

Note: Dr Barry Castleman's observation below has relevance for India as well. Dr. Irving J. Selikoff (1915–1992) was a medical researcher who conclusively established a link between the inhalation of asbestos particles and lung-related ailments in the 1960s. His work is largely responsible for the ban on all kinds of asbestos in more than 70 countries. His worked paved the way for the WHO and ILO to recommend elimination of asbestos of all kinds to prevent incurable but preventable asbestos related diseases. 

The first clinically recorded case of an asbestos-induced lung disease was recorded over 100 years ago, in 1906. Dr. Murray diagnosed a 33-year old man who had worked in an asbestos textile plant for 14 years with asbestosis. But so far risk estimates have not been put in place by Indian regulatory agencies despite Indian Supreme Court's decision of 27 January, 1995 and a paper by three scientists, Bill Nicholson, George Perkel and Irving Selikoff.  

According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Washington database, 40,764 American workers died from asbestos-caused diseases in 2019 revealed in a publication by US based Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO). India does not have a similar database. As per the website of Indian National Human Rights Commission some 50, 000 Indians are dying every year due to asbestos related diseases. This data was presented in a complant that has not been disputed so far. There is not a single public or private building in India which has claimed to be asbestos free. No central or state legislature building, courts, hospitals, schools, railway platforms and media houses are free of carcinogenic mineral fiber. India is yet to become free from this colonial legacy. British East India Company Government and it's successor governments have knowingly subjected several generation of Indians to these fatal fibers. 

Gopal Krishna, LL.M., Ph.D

Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI) 

Web: www.asbestosfreeindia.org

Message from Barry Castleman 

Here is Bill Nicholson's report on the asbestos-cement (A-C) houses in the US Territory of Puerto Rico in 1978.  Bill was a co-worker of Dr. Selikoff.  He did environmental air sampling in the houses, using transmission electron microscopic analysis.        https://www.dropbox.com/s/gf6p1bbh1hbhqd6/Nicholson.%20Air%20Sampling%20in%20Asbestos-Cement%20Houses%201978.pdf?dl=0

This situation came to light when a young engineer from Puerto Rico came to the offices of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and also visited me, in Washington DC in 1977.  Eventually, the A-C houses in Puerto Rico were taken down and the people moved to other housing, after a court case.  I wrote it up as an example of a global problem. https://www.dropbox.com/s/ofq9qj7x69jw0es/Impending%20Proliferation%20of%20Asbestos%201980.pdf?dl=0

Not only were the external roofs of these houses made of A-C, but also the interior ceilings and walls were made with flat A-C sheets.  Bill Nicholson even visited a school where little children took naps sleeping on A-C sheet floors under their blankets.  I wonder how widespread such building practices are today, the use of A-C flat sheets in building interiors.

Bill Nicholson also raised concern about asbestos being washed off A-C roofs by rain, whereupon people walking through rain puddles outside could bring the asbestos dust inside, in the water on their shoes.  There, it could dry in the interior and expose building inhabitants to airborne asbestos.  Bill was also concerned about all efforts to saw, drill, or otherwise do any sort of construction work on these A-C building materials, and he took a few measurements of exposures using the standard optical microscopic methods for assessing occupational exposures.  The A-C flat sheets and roofs came from Eternit in Colombia.

I realize this all took place awhile ago but think Nicholson's report would nonetheless be of some interest today.

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Barry Castleman, ScD

Environmental Consultant

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