An Explanation for the Quebec/South Carolina Chrysotile Conundrum?
Why is there such a disparity between health outcomes of the workers who mined chrysotile and the textile workers who used it? In "Comparing Milled Fiber, Quebec Ore, and Textile Factory Dust: Has Another Piece of the Asbestos Puzzle Fallen into Place?" Berman reports that the dusts encountered at the facilities vary in two important ways. First, whether assessed by PCM or TEM, samples revealed that mine and mill dusts contain only 67% asbestos. On the other hand, typical feedstock for the textile facility was 100% asbestos. Second, the feedstock asbestos fibers were significantly longer than those typically encountered by workers exposed to mined or even refined asbestos.
Thus, for a given quantity of dust textile workers would have an approximately 50% greater exposure to asbestos and that exposure, on a fiber per fiber basis, would be significantly riskier. The author also suggests a method for reconstructing past exposures which would more accurately estimate the risk posed by each of those exposures.
