In many of my columns, I have referred to asbestosis as one of the major culprits for the poor results in the industry. Someone asked me what asbestosis was all about and why it was causing the industry so many problems. So this column is on asbestosis and why it is scaring the industry.

Asbestos was considered to be a wonder product in the 1930s despite having been discovered in the Stone Age. As a matter of fact, in the movie halls of days gone by, "ASBESTOS" frequently appeared in large black letters on the curtains of the movie screen before the curtains were pulled back. In those days, for some it was considered to be a great safety feature to know that the movie curtains were made of asbestos because then people were assured that the curtains would not burn down. But the vast majority of people believed that asbestos was just a brand name for many products and so were totally unaware of the ill effects from it.

Asbestos is "a broad term embracing a number of fibrous silicate minerals that are found in practically every country in the world".

The use of asbestos has been traced back back to the Stone Age when it was used in pottery. It became a significant commercial product when it was mined in the 1870s. However, it really took off during the industrial age because of its diverse and surprising physical properties.

In the 1930s, test results showed that asbestos was highly combustible but could withstand the most intense heat. It seemed to be indestructible because no matter the temperature or moisture, asbestos would not corrode or decay. Not even acids, alkalis or other chemicals could destroy it. Its fibres are long, thin and flexible which is why they were often woven into cloth.

As a result of these findings, the demand for asbestos rose almost as fast as it could be mined and milled. In an article entitled, "The Asbestos Tragedy", Paul Brodeur says, "In 1879, when the world's first commercial asbestos mine was opened at Thetford, in the Province of Quebec, only 300 tons was produced. By 1910, annual world production had increased to 30,000 tons; by the middle thirties, it had increased to 500,000tons and by the mid-1970s the total output was more than 4 million tons a year. For several decades asbestos was called "the mineral of a thousand uses" by those who sold it."

Therefore asbestos is very much integrated into our modern society. As a matter of fact, in the US alone there were some 3,000 industrial uses for asbestos. It is alleged that there is not an automobile, airplane, train, ship, missile, or an engine that does not contain asbestos in some shape or form. It is also in most buildings, factories, schools, and farms. And because of its minuscule and indestructible fibres, many humans have ingested these fibres into their lungs without the effects being known for as long as 40 years.

So how did the wonder product suddenly go wrong? As early as the Stone Age, the ill effect of asbestos handling became known when slaves who were weaving asbestos into cloth began to develop strange illnesses and die. However it was not until the industrial age when asbestos was being used as fast as it could mined and milled that the ugly asbestos problem reared its head again.

The first official diagnosis of the disease associated with asbestos was in the early 1900s. However it was not until 1924 that the problems resulting from extended and repeated exposure to asbestos made the medical journals. An Englishman, Dr. W. E. Cooke, was the first to name the disease, Asbestosis, after performing an autopsy on a 33-year-old woman who had worked in an asbestos-textile factory for 20 years. The autopsy revealed that her lungs were scarred and covered with strands of abnormal tissue connecting the lungs and pleural membranes surrounding them. Cooke's discovery began a seven-year investigation in Britain.

As early as 1918 American and Canadian life insurance companies were refusing to cover people who worked with asbestos because they noticed a high frequency of deaths among them.

By the early 1930s asbestos workers who had developed asbestosis were suing Johns-Manville Corporation, the leading supplier of asbestos in the United States and Raybestos- Manhattan, the second largest supplier. These companies had exposed their workers to this dangerous substance for several years. Employees became ill and some died. Manville and Raybestos-Manhattan had studies done to determine if there was a correlation between their employees falling ill and asbestos. Based on the findings of the studies, Manville and Raybestos-Manhattan were well aware of the danger to their employees' exposure to asbestos. Both companies were advised of the necessary safety precautions they could put into place to minimise the effects of asbestosis.

It is alleged that for profitability reasons, these two companies refused to put into place the necessary safety requirements to minimise the effects of the asbestosis exposure. The allegations go further to state that these companies along with other major asbestos suppliers took part in a conspiracy to cover up the ill effects of asbestos for some forty years. They coerced physicians to take damaging data about the ill effects of asbestos from reports, which were to be published for the public health service. In some cases, when X-rays came back showing that employees had developed asbestosis, it is alleged that Manville's senior management took the position of not telling the infected men because they felt that as long as the men thought they were in good health, they would continue to work hard. The information, which later came forward, about the deliberate concealment of material facts concerning the dangers of asbestos is mind boggling.

Next week, we'll look at how the asbestos situation has become an uncontrollable problem for the insurance industry and corporations.

Cathy Duffy is a Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) and is now a freelance writer. She is a former executive of Zurich Global Energy and has 15 years experience in the insurance industry. She writes on insurance issues in the Royal Gazette every Monday.