Science is not Sufficient: Irving J. Selikoff and the Asbestos Tragedy

Abstract

Professor Irving J. Selikoff (1915-1992) was America's foremost medical expert on asbestos-related diseases between the 1960s and early 1990s. He was also well known to the public for his media appearances on the burgeoning asbestos problem. Yet his reputation has been strikingly mixed. On the one hand, he has been portrayed as a mischief maker and irresponsible demagogue, who exaggerated the risks of asbestos and so destroyed an industry; on the other, as a pioneer in asbestos epidemiology, whose landmark studies of insulation (and other) workers demonstrated the severity of a modern occupational and public health tragedy. Drawing upon unprecedented access to the Selikoff archive at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, this article demonstrates that the most serious criticisms of Selikoff are either ill-founded or simply false. It also shows that Selikoff, in the highly politicized world of asbestos science, was a far more complex and conservative individual than previous studies have suggested.

Occupational Epidemiology in the Real World: Irving Selikoff, Odds Ratios, and Asbestosis

“…12,13 Although Selikoff's first study was relatively small, examining only 632 men who had been on the union's rolls between 1943 and 1962, 14 the method was sound and the findings indisputable -working with asbestos was deadly. An excess mortality rate of 25% was demonstrated in the first study, 11 and this was followed four years later when a 90-fold increased risk was identified among asbestos workers who also smoked. 15 Selikoff would go on to devote the rest of his professional life to the study and control of this fibre, becoming America's, if not the world's, foremost medical expert on asbestos-related disease between the 1960s and his death in the early 1990s.…”

“…15 Selikoff would go on to devote the rest of his professional life to the study and control of this fibre, becoming America's, if not the world's, foremost medical expert on asbestos-related disease between the 1960s and his death in the early 1990s. 11 Selikoff would leave a profound legacy in EOH, having been instrumental in reducing workplace exposure limits (for asbestos) by approximately 100-fold, when compared to earlier years. 16 Although he went on to found both a university department and a journal in EOH, 17 it was Selikoff's pioneering asbestos studies that would occupy a significant place in the evolution of modern occupational epidemiology -representing what is perhaps the archetype occupational exposure versus risk mortality study.…”

Community-based Participatory Research Is Needed to Address Pulmonary Health Disparities

“…He disseminated these findings to the scientific community, as well as to workers and the public through unions and the media. His research and advocacy led to federal regulations protecting workers and the public from asbestos-related morbidity (7,8). As demonstrated by Dr. Selikoff's historical example, CBPR aims to decrease health disparities by incorporating social and ecological health paradigms into the research process.…”

Real World Occupational Epidemiology, Part 2: A Visual Interpretation of Statistical Significance

“…Selikoff (1915Selikoff ( -1992 was an American chest physician and pioneering researcher who has often been described as the country's foremost medical expert on asbestosrelated diseases between the 1960s and the early 1990s. 13 In the late 1950s he opened a lung clinic in New Jersey and encountered a series of unusual illnesses among workers from a local asbestos plant. 14 In 1963, Selikoff collected data from a sample of around 1200 insulation workers in metropolitan New York.…”