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ASBESTOS: THE EVIL HISTORY

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4000 BC → Asbestos used for wicks in lamps and candles. The substance was known as "asbestos", meaning inextinguishable or unquenchable.

2000-3000 BC → Embalmed bodies of Egyptian pharaohs were wrapped in asbestos clothes to offset the ravages of time.

2500 BC → Used in Finland to stengthen clay pots.

800-900 → Anecdotal evidence of Charlemagne’s table cloth being made from woven asbestos.

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

1000 → Mediterranean’s used chrysotile from Cyprus and tremolite from upper Italy for the fabrication of cremation cloths, mats and wicks for temple lamps.

1300-1400 → Marco Polo visited an asbestos mine in China in the latter half of the 13 th Century. He concluded that asbestos was a stone and laid to rest the myth that asbestos was the hair of a woolly lizard.

Early 1700’s → Evidence that asbestos papers and boards were made as early as 1700 in Italy.

1712 → Chrysotile mined in Russia during the reign of Peter the Great.

1724 → Benjamin Franklin brought a purse made of asbestos to England. The purse is now in the Natural History Museum.

1805 → Blue asbestos (crocidolite) first discovered in Orange (South Africa) and was originally named "Woolstone".

1828 → The first known US patent issued for asbestos insulating material used in steam engines.

1850 → Chrysotile first discovered in Quebec, Canada at the Thedford mines.

circa 1853 → Asbestos helmet and jackets worn by Parisian Fire Brigade.

1860’s → Packings and gaskets were produced, as mixtures of asbestos and organic fibrous materials.

1866 → Moulded lagging material made from waterglass and asbestos.

1866 → Italian asbestos industry based on tremolite asbestos dates back to 1866.

Early 1870’s → Founding of large asbestos industries in Scotland, Germany and England with the production of "asbestos boards"

1870’s → The "modern" asbestos industry commenced in Canada and USSR, when large deposits of chrysotile were extensively exploited.

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

1880 → The American asbestos industry is founded with the use of Italian asbestos to manufacture asbestos paper and board.

1886 → Asbestos pipe lagging materials, based on 85% magnesia, were developed.

1896 → First asbestos brake linings were made by Ferodo Limited in England. Made by impregnating woven asbestos brake bands with resin.

1897 → Viennese physician wrote than emaciation and pulmonary problems left no doubt that (asbestos) dust inhalation was the cause.

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.

1898 → England, Lady Inspectors of factories wrote regarding the asbestos manufacturing processes ".... on account of their easily demonstrated danger to the heath of the workers, and because of ascertained cases of injury to bronchial tubes and lungs medically attributed to the employment of the sufferers".

1899 → First patent for the manufacture of asbestos cement sheet in Germany.

1900 → Initially patented in 1896, first high pressure asbestos gaskets made by Klinger in Austria.

1900 → Commencement of mining of anthophyllite in Finland.

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

1906 → Asbestos brake linings manufactured in the USA.

1907 → Amosite (brown asbestos) discovered in Transvaal, South Africa. The word amosite derived from an acronym of "Asbestos Mines of South Africa" from the Amosa mine.

1913 → First asbestos pipes developed in Italy.

1915 → Asbestos brake linings manufactured in Germany

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

1919 → Standard corrugated sheet introduced in Australia by Hardies.

1920’s → Large asbestos companies experimented on ways of weaving asbestos. Succeeded, but chrysotile and crocidolite were the only fibres to be woven commercially. Crocidolite being almost exclusively used for manufacture of asbestos mattresses for steam trains.

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 → Asbestos industry regulations were passed in the UK to address concerns that asbestos exposure, particularly among textile factory workers led to lung damage.

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 &rarr 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".

1939 → In the film ’The Wizard of Oz’ , the Wicked Witch of the West appeared on a broom made of asbestos.

1939-1945 → Wartime paraphernalia including fireproof suits and parachute flares contained asbestos.

1945-1975 → Post-war construction projects relied heavily on the use of asbestos reaching an all-time high in 1973.

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.

1960s → Health concerns began to surface in the US and UK after studies revealed that low levels of asbestos exposure could be more dangerous than previously thought

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.

1990s → The solid fuel boosters of the Space Shuttle are insulated with asbestos. One of the few remaining current uses.

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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