MONTREAL - McGill University says it is reviewing the findings of a major research project into the asbestos industry and cancer caused by exposure to the fibrous material.
David Eidelman, the university's dean of medicine, says allegations in a CBC report that several decades of research led by J. Corbett McDonald could have been influenced by the asbestos industry must be taken seriously.
But he also says holding scientific views different from those of the majority does not constitute research misconduct.
McDonald, who is now retired, began studying mortality rates associated with asbestos in 1966, looking at about 11,000 Quebec miners and millers of chrysotile, an asbestos fibre.
He and his research team published a series of studies between 1971 to 1998 which were funded in part by the Institute of Occupational and Environmental Health of the Quebec Mining Association, something which McDonald acknowledged.
While Eidelman says McDonald drew different conclusions about the safe use of asbestos from some current-day authorities, he did demonstrate that asbestos is a carcinogen associated with lung cancer and mesothelioma.
Eidelman says McGill researchers perform their work to the highest ethical standards and the university is not currently getting any funding from the asbestos industry.
