Summary
Asbestos was long used as an additive material for the filtration of many kinds of alcoholic beverages. There has been, however, only one case report of a distiller in Italy showing pleural thickenings and lung parenchymal fibrosis due to exposure to asbestos. We report a retired Japanese sake brewer who showed bilateral calcified pleural plaques on chest X-ray films. X-ray diffraction analysis and energy disperse X-ray microanalysis demonstrated the additive material used for sake filtration to be almost pure chrysotile. Furthermore, 17 cases showing probably asbestos-related pleural thickenings were found on examination of 235 chest X-ray films of male workers at different sake breweries. These findings indicate that Japanese sake brewers should be listed as workers at possible risk of asbestos-related health problems.
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Horii, H., Nagasaka, Y. & Yamada, Y. Asbestos-related pleural thickenings in Japanese sake brewers. Int. Arch Occup Environ Heath 64, 315–319 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00379539
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00379539