peritoneal mesothelioma and shares similar asbestos causation.

There is ongoing argument about the potency of chrysotile asbestos to cause malignant mesothelioma. Risk assessment for chrysotile is influenced by the alleged absence of mesotheliomas among workers at the Raybestos Manhattan friction products plant in Connecticut, a plant that essentially used only chrysotile asbestos. Regrettably, the statement that there is an absence of mesothelioma deaths in the Connecticut plant is false. In this paper, we report on our review of the work histories and pathological reports of five individuals from the Connecticut plant who were diagnosed with mesothelioma. We discuss the Connecticut plant in relation to the most recent epidemiological information for chrysotile. Calculation suggests that mesothelioma rates at this plant were similar to those observed among Quebec miners and the South Carolina textile plant. We urge everyone concerned with the risk assessment of chrysotile asbestos to make use of all available data.

Case reports remain an important source of data in the debate over the carcinogenic effect of asbestos-containing automotive friction products. This report documents a case of pleural mesothelioma accompanied by asbestos bodies in the lung tissue of a career auto mechanic with no other known sources of exposure. Previously unreported historical and contemporary exposure data are also discussed in the context of providing additional support for the proposition that work with asbestos-containing automotive products presents a risk of significant exposure. While there remains a body of negative epidemiology that fails to find an increased risk of disease among auto workers, those data must be approached with caution. Many of those studies have drawn technical criticisms, which are beyond the scope of this report, but they remain a key part of the legal defense mounted by defendant-companies who are involved in asbestos-related litigation. This ongoing debate provides the context for the continued relevance of case reports such as this one, as well as the presentation of new and previously unpublished exposure data.

The now well documented phenomenon of "doubt science" has crept into litigation generally, but has had a particularly deleterious effect in asbestos litigation, giving rise to pernicious myths that are told and re-told every day in legal briefs and in court proceedings. Defendants routinely challenge the admissibility of testimony from plaintiffs' expert witnesses when those experts testify about certain key concepts in asbestos medicine and asbestos science. Defendants boldly proclaim plaintiffs' experts' opinions to be "junk science" and seek to have them precluded regardless of how well documented, well researched, well supported and well accepted those opinions are. This has become all too routine in asbestos litigation, where defendants predictably seek to preclude testimony about medical and scientific issues that have been settled for decades and that are not legitimately disputed outside of litigation by the unbiased scientific community of national and international regulatory agencies and scientific organizations.

A man diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma sought legal representation with the author's law firm. He worked 33 years in a wire and cable factory in the northeastern United States (Connecticut) that exclusively used chrysotile asbestos in its manufacturing process. This is the first report of mesothelioma arising from employees of this factory. This report provides additional support for the proposition that chrysotile asbestos can cause malignant mesothelioma in humans. If chrysotile risk assessments are to be accurate, then the literature should contain an accurate accounting of all mesotheliomas alleged to be caused by chrysotile asbestos. This is important not just for public health professionals but also for individuals and companies involved in litigation over asbestos-related diseases. If reports such as these remain unknown, it is probable that cases of mesothelioma among chrysotile-exposed cohorts would go unrecognized and chrysotile-using factories would be incorrectly cited as having no mesotheliomas among their employees.