Fiberglass is one of the most studied man-made substances on the planet, and there are dozens of studies specifically designed to determine whether fiberglass poses any health hazard to humans. These third-party studies have produced a robust body of scientific evidence supporting the safety of fiber glass in air handling applications. However, despite the evidence supporting both its safety and performance, there are still some lingering fears about the safety of fiberglass. Primarily:
These perceptions come from the initial fiberglass research that exposed test animals to glass fibers through surgical implantation into the abdomen rather than through inhalation. Clearly this is a route of exposure that would never be encountered in the real world, and it bypasses all the natural defense mechanisms inherent to the human body. The results of these tests indicated that fiber glass could pose a potential health hazard.
Despite the flaws these test methods, they were the sole source of fiberglass safety research for many years. In the absence of well-designed animal inhalation studies, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) determined that these artificial implantation studies provided sufficient evidence to list fiberglass as a “possible carcinogen” in 1987.
Since these studies did not accurately replicate typical fiberglass exposure, Johns Manville voluntarily took responsibility to lead the industry in studying the potential health effects of respirable glass fibers. We helped pioneer the efforts and were soon joined by the rest of the biggest names in the fiberglass industry in our endeavor to scientifically determine whether or not fiber glass presented any health hazard to humans. These studies required scientists to create innovative exposure methods that could accurately replicate actual inhalation exposure environments all in order to fully understand the interactions between fiberglass and live animal lung tissue.
The findings confirmed that insulation glass fibers dissolve in the lungs relatively quickly, removing any potential for the chronic inflammation that could lead to ill effects on the lungs.
The collaborative effort between the industry’s biggest fiberglass producers to test the safety of fiberglass ultimately led to a partnership between OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and NAIMA, the North American Insulation Manufacturers Association. They partnered to create the Health and Safety Partnership Program (HSPP) in 1995. As a public-private partnership, the HSPP was able to draw upon the wealth of expertise in the insulation industry under the watchful eye of OSHA, providing unbiased information about the health and safety of fiberglass.
The study of fiberglass didn’t just stop at inhalation studies. There were a series of additional studies that explored a variety of different facets of fiber glass exposure:
The findings in each of these studies further confirm that the fiberglass used in JM’s air handling products does not pose any respiratory health hazard to humans, and that there is a relative absence of fiber glass fibers in non-occupational settings.
If you would like to have more information about the details of this research and the subsequent findings, we encourage you to sign up for our live webinar, “The Science Behind the Health and Safety of Fiber Glass and Mineral Wool,” on March 25th at 2:00pm ET/ 11:00am PT, hosted by Bruce Ray, Johns Manville’s Associate General Counsel for Regulatory & Governmental Affairs and Kim Melton, Assoc. Content Marketing Manager and Technical Writer.
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