Asbestos: a continuing failure of ethics by McGill University

Many people are shocked when they learn that the asbestos trade is thriving today. It’s true of course, that we in the privileged world no longer use asbestos. In the global South however, particularly in Asia, asbestos use is increasing.¹ For the past 20 years, two million tons of asbestos a year² is being put in homes and schools to cause a public health catastrophe for decades to come.

Many people would perhaps be shocked to know that Canada, and in particular, McGill University, deserve a good part of the credit for the continued survival of the asbestos industry in spite of the overwhelming scientific evidence of its deadly nature. Quebec was the centre of asbestos mining in Canada and one of the biggest asbestos exporters in the world.¹ In September 2012, the newly elected Parti Québécois government cancelled a government loan to the Jeffrey mine, which had mined and exported asbestos for over a century, and the industry is now shut down.

In every country where asbestos has been used, it has left behind epidemics of asbestos-related deaths. Asbestos continues in Canada to be the biggest cause of death from occupational disease. In Quebec, over 70% of such deaths are due to asbestos.³

By the 1960s, evidence that asbestos caused deadly diseases, such as asbestosis, mesothelioma, and other cancers, was simply indisputable. The Quebec Asbestos Mining Association (QAMA), run by Johns-Manville and other asbestos multinationals, knew they faced extinction. The QAMA desperately needed a good PR strategy.

QAMA 1965 records report how it was seeking an “alliance with some university, such as McGill, so that authoritative background for publicity can be had.” In 1966, following the tobacco industry’s example, QAMA set up a front organization: the Institute of Occupational & Environmental Health (IOEH) in Montreal. It was totally financed and controlled by the asbestos companies and its purpose was to be “independent of any other institution – university or governmental – so that its policy can be determined by the needs of the industry.”⁴

Professor J. C. McDonald of McGill’s Department of Epidemiology was given a million dollars by the IOEH to carry out research on Quebec asbestos miners, the biggest study ever undertaken and therefore extremely influential. McDonald and his McGill colleagues admitted that the technique they used (midget dust impinger) to estimate asbestos fiber levels in the mines was an outdated, inaccurate technique, only 13% better than a random guess.⁵ In fact, using this faulty technique, McDonald’s results showed that exposure to chrysotile asbestos gave protection against cancer. Recognizing this result was ludicrous, McDonald arbitrarily deleted all data that showed asbestos as protective in order to come up with different results.⁶

McDonald stated that his research showed that chrysotile asbestos was essentially “innocuous” except at “astronomically” high exposure levels.⁷ Workers could therefore be exposed to high levels of asbestos fibers (45 fibers per cubic centimeter of air) without adverse affect to health, said McDonald. The UK limit at the time was 2 f/cc. Today it is 0·1 f/cc.⁸

McDonald’s results supported the asbestos industry’s position, which claimed that asbestos deaths had been caused by astronomically high exposure levels of the past and, since such conditions no longer existed, chrysotile asbestos could be safely used. The data on which McDonald based his findings has never been made available. No independent scientist has replicated them; every reputable scientific body in the world has rejected them.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer and the World Health Organization have concluded that there is no safe exposure level to chrysotile asbestos and have called for an end to all use of chrysotile asbestos in order to prevent further epidemics of asbestos-related diseases.

To name just a few of the leading organizations, who categorically dismiss McDonald’s conclusions that chrysotile asbestos can be safely used and should continue to be used: the World Federation of Public Health Associations, the International Commission on Occupational Health, the International Social Security Association, the International Union for Cancer Control, the International Trade Union Confederation, the Collegium Ramazzini, and the Joint Policy Committee of Societies of Epidemiology have all called for an end to the use of chrysotile asbestos.

McDonald’s findings were gold for the asbestos industry and are still used today to promote asbestos use and to deny compensation to asbestos victims.

For example, the paper, Health Risks of Chrysotile Revisited by David Bernstein, was financed by the International Chrysotile Association (ICA) and used in the ICA’s efforts to defeat the listing of chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous substance at the May 2013 Rotterdam Convention conference in Geneva and is being used now to help promote use of chrysotile asbestos in Asian countries.^9,10 In the past, McDonald collaborated with Bernstein to defend use of chrysotile asbestos in Brazil and globally. The Bernstein paper makes use of McDonald’s theory that it was tremolite contamination of chrysotile asbestos that caused harm to health and McDonald’s conclusion that exposure of up to 45 f/cc of chrysotile asbestos “has been essentially innocuous.” Bernstein is currently presenting this paper at conferences organized by the asbestos industry to promote asbestos use in Asia.^11,12

Canadian taxpayers contributed enormously to the industry’s successful marketing of asbestos in developing countries. The government gave millions of dollars to the asbestos lobby and allowed it to put the Government of Canada emblem on its materials.^13,14

McDonald testified at national and international regulatory hearings to oppose stricter controls and bans on asbestos, citing his research without ever disclosing that the asbestos industry had financed it. In 1972, alongside asbestos industry executives, McDonald urged a US regulatory agency (OSHA) to reject stricter exposure standards, sought by unions and the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. In testifying, Professor McDonald stated: “I do not work, nor am I associated with any asbestos producer or manufacturer.”¹⁵ This was categorically untrue.

In 1998, McDonald was Canada’s scientific adviser at a World Trade Organization tribunal when Canada, on behalf of the asbestos industry, sought to remove the right of countries to ban chrysotile asbestos. McDonald argued that the WTO should ignore the evidence of other scientists and rely on his research, as it was “the biggest scientific study of chrysotile workers.”¹⁶ He failed to mention that it was financed by the asbestos industry. In one of the rare cases where the WTO ruled in favor of health protection, not corporate interests, the tribunal dismissed Canada’s case.

In January 2012, McGill was asked to hold an independent investigation into complaints of improprieties regarding McDonald’s research. Instead of an independent investigation, McGill held an internal review “to ensure that the research of Professor McDonald was conducted according to the rigorous scientific standards for which McGill is known.”¹⁷ The review was tainted with bias and misinformation. Before it even began, McGill made statements exonerating McDonald. The Dean of Medicine stated he expected the complaint would be dismissed, saying: “Professor McDonald is widely considered a pioneer in the demonstration of the health hazards of asbestos.”¹⁷ As well as bias, this statement is utterly false. McDonald is known around the world as a leading denier of the health hazards of chrysotile asbestos. As McCullock and Tweedale note, “By the end of the century the McGill scientists had presented the world with a product that was whiter than white.”¹⁸

The Dean then asked McGill’s Research Integrity Officer, Dr. Fuks, for advice, saying that while the review had found no improprieties, “the Faculty does not currently have all required records and data in hand to assess definitively in regard to research integrity.”¹⁹ Dr. Fuks failed to find the missing data, but dismissed the complaint anyway, praising McDonald’s research as having “led to the near complete disappearance of the asbestos industry in the developed world and the universal recognition of the toxicity of the product.”²⁰ He recommended that McGill hold a conference on asbestos.

This statement from McGill’s ethics officer is extraordinary. It is utterly false. McDonald’s research has played a major role in promoting use of asbestos and in denying its toxicity. Over many decades, both in the scientific and the non-scientific setting, McDonald cited his research as evidence that chrysotile asbestos is virtually innocuous and can be safely used.²¹

The complaint to McGill specifically raised the issue of McDonald’s denial and non-disclosure of industry funding at regulatory hearings around the world. Dr. Fuks assiduously refused to address the issue, excluding this evidence from his report while claiming that McDonald disclosed his industry funding “in the non-scientific record.”²⁰ As evidence, Dr. Fuks cited a 1975 CBC Montreal interview. This was extraordinarily deceptive on Dr. Fuks’ part. The Quebec media knew that the asbestos industry was financing McDonald’s research and simply asked how much:

CBC: The asbestos industry is now contributing some financial assistance to the study. How much is the industry contributing?

McDonald: The biggest single contribution is…from the combined asbestos mining industries of Canada.²²

McDonald did not disclose the industry funding; the CBC already knew and stated it as a fact.

It is also troubling that McGill misused a CBC interview as evidence, while suppressing the evidence that Prof. McDonald denied his industry funding when testifying at the critical 1972 OSHA regulatory hearing on that self-same industry — a hearing that affected the safety of millions of people. This is not an abstract, academic issue. The asbestos industry, with Prof. McDonald’s support, succeeded in defeating stricter safety protections that would have cost the industry millions of dollars, but which would have saved lives of workers and their families.

McDonald’s conduct seems to be in clear violation of McGill’s Conflict of Interest Guidelines.²³ These Guidelines do not seem to be taken seriously by McGill, however. Over the past 20 months, while reviewing the complaint, McGill never once referred to these Guidelines and has conveyed a strong message that McGill condones or is indifferent to academics not disclosing industry financing.

McGill held its conference Asbestos: Dialogue for the Future on 1 October.²⁴ No one answered the damning evidence put forward by myself, Asbestos: A Failure of Ethics by McGill University and by Professor Egilman, The Past is Prologue, Universities in Service to Corporations: The McGill-QAMA Asbestos Example (these two presentations are available as supplementary files files).^25,26

A conference is wonderful, but it is not a substitute for doing the right thing. It’s time for McGill to do the right thing and hold an independent inquiry on its asbestos history.

Kathleen Ruff is founder of the human rights website RightOnCanada.ca and Senior Advisor on Human Rights to the Rideau Institute.