‘Defending the indefensible: The global asbestos industry and its fight for survival’ gives a seminal account of the asbestos industry, and its attempts to defend the product, by two expert historians of the subject. It examines how the asbestos industry and its allies in government, insurance, and medicine defended the product throughout the twentieth century. It explains how mining and manufacture could continue despite overwhelming medical evidence as to the risks. The argument advanced in this book is that asbestos has proved so enduring because the industry was able to mount a successful defence strategy for the mineral – a strategy that still operates in some parts of the world. This defence involved the shaping of the public debate by censoring, and sometimes corrupting, scientific research, nurturing scientific uncertainty, and using allies in government, insurance, and medicine.

Jock McCulloch and Geoffrey Tweedale. Defending the indefensible: The global asbestos industry and its fight for survival, OUP, 15 September 2008. ISBN: 9780199534852.