TY - JOUR T1 - Unreliable proposed ‘new standard’ for assessing asbestos exposure JF - Occupational and Environmental Medicine JO - Occup Environ Med SP - 709 LP - 709 DO - 10.1136/oemed-2016-103704 VL - 73 IS - 10 AU - David Egilman AU - Xaver Baur AU - Colin L Soskolne Y1 - 2016/10/01 UR - http://oem.bmj.com/content/73/10/709.2.abstract N2 - Gilham and colleagues conclude that there is a linear dose–response relationship between lung asbestos burden and the development of mesothelioma, and that the lung burden should be considered a reliable tool to predict future mesothelioma rates in participants born since 1965.The paper and commentary are based on incorrect assumptions that generate both an invalid analysis and invalid conclusions:The authors exclusively rely on asbestos fibre counts measured in lung tissue decades after exposures had taken place, as an indicator of asbestos dose.Only 2% of the fibres identified were chrysotile, while chrysotile represented as much as 90% of the asbestos used in the UK. Chrysotile is not lung biopersistent; but biopersistence correlates with neither lung … ER -