Document 15B3xLOgkj2Lj4Y2v4rqQXDEX

FILE NAME: General Motors (GM) DATE: 0000 DOC#: GM058 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: Memo RE Status of GM Program for Replacing Asbestos in Brakes He Status 0f General Motors Program for Replacing Asbestos In .Brakes Ultimately, someone will have to identify the technical experts in the company and ask them about the real status of the program. We should at least make a point of finding out who those experts are. Let's start with thisi. General Kotors Programs on 'Ion-Asbestos Friction Materials for drake Systems. 1 page, no author listed. September ?, 1979, passed on to me (now lost) by the I'.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This annouhced that 60^ of all passenger car disc brakes (6h) had non-asbestos friction materials. It pro jected that all GM 1983 model cars with disc brakes would have asbestos-free brakes, and all cars and light trucks with drum brakes would have asbestos-free brakes by the 1985 model year. 1. I suspect that with the deregulation going on in Washington, they have slowed the pace of their asbestos elimination program. Asbestos use in brakes actually went up a little from 1980-1981, after dropping off from 1978 on. Who wrote this' report, and what other reports are there Inside the company In the same files that'will show us what's going on? ` The Jury and the public would like to know if GM is willing to exceed its customary standard of safety and try to prevent hichclson's prediction of 20,000 excess deaths fver the next HO years from brake repairi an impossible problem to regulate shop-by-shop) from coming true and continuing beyond 2020. That's what we are trying to prevent. 2. Technical questions, aside from the personnel ones to get at who the company experts are in asbestos substitution technology vbattis their timetable today for the things mentioned in the 1979 . release? Are they making their milestone dates to meet these deadlines, or exceed them?/ What are today's models like? what patents do they have regarding asbestos substitutes in brakes or anything else? what articles have their techinal, people published along these lines in the last 10 yrs (including anything "in press")? what correspondence do they have with government agencies or persons outside the company regarding-these programs? what nemos exist on the progress of the program? , I*d like to get-this kind of information^ at least what they'd give up easily first, and have^Stephen Berger dola^tech&ical; review,with mefto get to the next step. "rS^eve'e in Oakland, how,Vattending graduate, school at Berkeley in environ mental engineering (6631 'Saroni;Br.;:9^6li), no^has [written the asbestos subr : stltutes chhpter of my book, ori'iiftsjtlttionV- ;B o o kvoh't be out until July. 5 ; ^ .^'.'';.. . W0SH estimates;900,000 people in!tdiis:country regularly, do brake repairs. Most of .them use a compressed air hose to blow off accumulated dust, a mortal risk. JLsnger recently published a.'case report of asbestosis--mesothelioma in there will be