The woes of Wittenoom's asbestos

Mustard gas, dioxins and death. What we can learn from history on exposure to chemical mutagens. (Part 2)

Wittenoom became a carcinogenic time bomb as mining waste products known as tailings were brought into the town, paved into roads and scattered in playgrounds and gardens to suppress dust. Near the mine, the tailings — more than three million tons — were left piled up like mountains and left to stream down gorges.

- NY Times

Ahh asbestos, the flexible, fire resistant, strong and lightweight miracle substance of yesteryear. Line your walls with it. Surround your chimneys and vents. Plaster it on your ceiling for extra texture, or put it in your toaster and butter up some toast. Who doesn’t want a little clump of deadly mesothelioma to make their morning just that little bit more miserable.

Today, it is widely accepted that asbestos is a hazardous substance and even a small fleeting exposure could result in the tiny airborne particles being inhaled. In doing so they are able to land within the soft tissues of the lungs and plant themselves like a seed in the deepest recesses. So in as few as two, five, ten, twenty or in forty years time you develop a nasty and mostly incurable cancer. Mesothelioma.

Here I present the story of Wittenoom, a once thriving town in the middle of what otherwise would seem like a hot and arid yet remarkably charming wasteland. I want to talk of life there and of how it was many years ago. The management of the mine as it operated, and the knowledge of the risks associated with dust borne diseases that went unmitigated for decades. All despite a growing body of scientific literature and doctors pressing their concerns to mine management directly.

More than 2000 former residents of the town, wives and children included have now succumbed to and died of asbestos related illness. Could this have been avoided? What fate did CSR, the company ultimately in charge of the mine face? What biological process provokes such a delayed but deadly reaction? And who is going to clean this mess up?

The history of Wittenoom

In 1943 the Colonial Sugar Company, through its subsidiary Australian Blue Asbestos Ltd., took over both the Wittenoom and Yampire Mines. Lang Hancock the land owner watched his station property quickly transform into a town.

The town sprung up with a boom and it drew in thousands of workers.

At a time of high unemployment in Western Australia and an acute post-war housing shortage, Wittenoom was an attractive prospect for people looking for work, both Australian-born and recent migrants.

In the 1950s Wittenoom was the largest Western Australian town north of the Tropic of Capricorn and was promoted as a new model mining town with modern amenities. Located in a landscape of spectacular beauty, Wittenoom seemed like a great opportunity, even paradise for many of its new inhabitants.

Blue asbestos litters what remains of the streets of Wittenoom.

The miners and mine management

There is absolutely no question that CSR knew that asbestosis and cancer were extremely likely results of working in conditions such as those they permitted in Wittenoom. (CSR’s knowledge was established in the Victorian and Western Australian courts through the judgements of asbestos-caused injury litigation)
During the mining operations, more than 20,000 men, women and children lived at Wittenoom. Some of the workers sent there were part of the Commonwealth Government policy to place new migrants for a period of two years in any work situation.

In 1948, Eric Saint from the WA Public Health Department was the first person to explicitly warn both the mine's owners and the WA government about the impending health disaster.

He predicted "the most lethal crop of cases of asbestosis in the world". But his warnings were ignored.

In 1962 the matters of poor hygiene and excessive dust at the CSR Wittenoom mine and mill were brought to the attention of Premier and Cabinet of the day. Sadly, no action was taken because apparently CSR threatened to close the mine if additional restrictions were to be placed upon their mining and milling of blue asbestos.

It would appear that despite the many warnings from doctors and mining inspectors, CSR continued to run the mine and milling operations with little regard for the need of dust suppression, which is now considered to be the reason for many premature deaths of former Wittenoom workers and other citizens these many years later.

The daring doctor and the duty of care

In 1962 Dr McNulty diagnosed the first mesothelioma case in Australia in a worker employed at CSR’s blue asbestos mine at Wittenoom. Upon diagnosing this first Australian mesothelioma, Dr McNulty personally explained its significance to CSR’s subsidiary management (Australian Blue Asbestos Pty Ltd) stating “that the relatively short period of exposure to blue asbestos confirms the impression that these tumours may arise after transitory exposure to crocidolite." He also sent them a copy of his paper describing the case which was published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Dr McNulty is adamant that CSR was always aware that if it continued to run the mine without adequate dust suppression, they could be endangering the Wittenoom mine and mill workers to a very grave degree.

The delayed disease process

During the long latency period of malignant mesothelioma, a myriad of pathogenic events may occur that can contribute to the development of the disease. After asbestos fibers are inhaled deeply into the lung and penetrate pleural space, prolonged cycles of tissue damage, repair, and local inflammation are initiated following the interaction of asbestos fibers with mesothelial cells. That, in turn, leads to carcinogenesis.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) induced by asbestos fibers with their exposed surface lead to DNA damage and stimulate a signal transduction cascade. Macrophages phagocytize asbestos fibers but are unable to digest them, thus resulting in the production of abundant ROS.

Macrophages and asbestos-exposed mesothelial cells produce a panoply of different growth factors and cytokines which induce inflammation and promote tumor development. These include tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα), insulin-derived growth factor-1, interleukin-1β, transforming growth factor-β, granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factors, and platelet-derived growth factor.

TNFα has been shown to activate nuclear factor-κB, which seriously contributes to tumor formation and progression in mesothelioma. High-mobility group box 1 protein has also been shown to be released from mesothelial cells, which promotes an inflammatory response by establishing an autocrine circuit in mesothelial cells that influences their proliferation and survival.

The long latency period between asbestos exposure and the development of mesothelioma, which can be up to 40 years, suggests that multiple genetic alterations are important in the conversion of normal cells to malignant mesothelial cells. Comprehensive karyotypic analyses have revealed that malignant mesotheliomas display multiple clonal chromosomal abnormalities, with over 10 of these abnormalities present in most cases of mesotheliomas.

Asbestos fibers are also engulfed by mesothelial cells, which can disrupt mitotic spindles and influence the cell cycle process. The tangling of asbestos fibers with mitotic spindles may result in chromosomal structural abnormalities and aneuploidy of mesothelial cells.

The loss of one copy of chromosome 22 represents the single most consistent chromosomal change in patients with mesothelioma. Specific deletions of chromosomal sites involve the short arm (p) of chromosomes 1, 3, and 9, as well as the long arm (q) of chromosome 6. Other nonrandom cytogenetic alterations can be found on other chromosomes as well.

Certain tumor suppressor genes located in the aforementioned chromosomal regions have also been implicated in the disease, including CDKN2A/ARF at chromosome band 9p21 and NF2 at 22q12. Mutations of the p53 gene, which is one of the most frequent genetic changes seen in the cancer cells, are occasionally observed in malignant mesothelioma as well.

It has also been postulated that simian virus 40 (SV40) can bind to and inactivate wild-type p53 in mesothelioma, thus interfering with DNA repair, as well as apoptotic and growth inhibitory functions. Although it is a DNA monkey virus, the probable route of transmission to humans was through the SV40 contaminated polio vaccines distributed between 1955 and 1978.

The legal cases

In 1984 Peter Gordon, a lawyer practising in Victoria, was involved in the first successful negligence claim for damages brought by a mesothelioma victim. This brought him into contact with Robert Vojakovic of the Perth-based Asbestos Diseases Society. The ADS had 360 former Wittenoom workers on its books who were suffering from asbestos diseases and seeking compensation from the CSR subsidiary Midalco, formerly ABA. The first case concerned former Wittenoom mill worker Wally Simpson who was suffering from asbestosis. But as Peter Gordon explains, this ultimately unsuccessful case turned out to be a gruelling legal battle, which almost ruined the law firm.

CSR’s attempt to profit from asbestos by mining blue asbestos in Wittenoom was ultimately an expensive failure. Like James Hardie, it has had to deal with the deadly legacy of the impact of exposure to the mineral on its workers, but its approach to compensation was quite different. In contrast to the drawn out litigation of the James Hardie cases, CSR was rather more willing to settle its cases.

After finally accepting liability, CSR began settling claims out of court. In 1989 the Wittenoom group settlement was agreed in which CSR paid $18,266,000 to 200 Wittenoom claimants. The law firm Slater & Gordon was chiefly responsible for these legal victories against CSR.

The Wittenoom group settlement was not the end of the matter for CSR, however. Other workers, Wittenoom residents and, most distressing of all, Wittenoom’s former children all had their day in court.

Like other employers whose workers handled asbestos, CSR has faced ongoing liabilities; in 2010 these liabilities totaled $30-50 million a year.

The town that history nearly forgot

Closed for good, excluding one eccentric long time resident who refuses to go anywhere. The government has shut off all other services to the town such as water, drainage and electricity.

It has also deleted the town from any newly printed maps and removed all signs marking the way there to deter unwanted visitors or tourists from risking their health. It appears, out of site and out of mind is the official approach employed by WA authorities. But this haphazard approach is pissing off the local Aboriginal people who are rallying for a big clean up.

And when all the mine workers left, the traditional owners stayed and their exposure to asbestos continued.

Mesothelioma has devastated these small communities.

"There wouldn't be a family that hasn't been affected. Not one," says Paul Sheiner, a lawyer who has worked with the Banjima people for decades and on Wittenoom compensation claims since the 1990s.

Conclusions

Companies are often greedy, they are there to produce profits (Net present value) and often employ stall tactics to avoid paying fines or spending money for preventative measures and workers safety. They then often muddy the waters by blaming diseases on x, y and z. Anything other than their own wrong doings.

This is particularly important in cases where delayed health effects may result, such as with asbestos, or as previously discussed in Part 1: Comparing apples to Agent orange? And will likely occur with the current gene therapies many have been coerced into accepting as “safe and effective”, even when a wide array of peer reviewed science paints quite the different picture.