Clinical measurement in Quebec chrysotile miners: use for future protection of workers

There is a relationship between dust exposure, on the one hand, and serious disease and death, on the other, in chrysotile asbestos mine and mill workers of Quebec. Studies in current working populations indicate that prevalence of abnormality increases with increasing exposure. However, the relationship is weak and offers only a partial explanation of between-subject variability. In addition, there is no certain way to detect or predict change. Because of the relative nonspecificity of the health measurements examined and their poor relationship to exposure, control should be based on environmental monitoring, with biologic monitoring considered in a complementary role. This leaves the clinician with the dilemma of how best to advise the worker in whom questionable changes have been detected. At present, there appears little doubt that the decision must remain essentially clinical, based, on one hand, on all available information about the man, his job, and the plant or mine in which he works, from which an estimate of likely outcome must be made, and, on the other hand, on the social and human factors concerned, including the fact that removal from exposure does not necessarily prevent the appearance of abnormality.