Magic Mineral to Killer Dust: Turner & Newall and the Asbestos Hazard by
Geoffrey Tweedale, Oxford University Press, £40, ISBN 0198296908
WHEN Steve McQueen died in 1980, it wasn’t just another story of a rock star
or film star paying the ultimate price for their excesses. McQueen was killed by
mesothelioma, a vicious form of cancer that attacks the lining of the chest or
abdomen. And why did he succumb to what was once an extremely rare form of the
disease? Asbestos exposure, from his time as a marine in the US Navy.
McQueen’s name is just one of many listed in the index of Geoffrey Tweedale’s…
