Pleural Effects of Environmental Asbestos Pollution in Corsica

By 1978, while surveying former chrysotile miners from Canari (located in the NE part of Corsica), we observed an anomalously high percentage (3.8 percent) of bilateral pleural plaques in a control group made up of subjects working in open air and not occupationally exposed to asbestos. Because these pleural plaques might have been related to environmental asbestos exposure, we designed a series of surveys, in collaboration with the Laboratoire d'Etude des Particulates Inhalees (LEPI, Paris), to test this hypothesis. The incidence of pleural plaques in northeast Corsica is in the range previously reported by other authors in cases of environmental asbestos pollution, particularly in the Alpine arch. The relationship between the occurrence of bilateral plaques and birthplace in Corsican villages close to asbestos deposits is supported by our X-ray results.