Document 82Vb0Lx9rY68N8nE2VNO69MNk
FILE NAME Special Asbestos SA DATE 1978 July 14
DOC SA012
DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION ABC News Transcript - Asbestos Way to Dusty
Death
RADIO TV REPORTS INC
2
91185
4435 WISCONSIN AVENUE N.W WASHINGTON DC
244-35
&
e
FOR
THE ASBESTOS INFORMATION ASSOCIATION
PLAINTIFF'S con
EXHIBIT
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exhibtsicker
SBCA 5051 exhibtsicker
PROGRAM
ABC News Closeup
STATION
WJLA ABC Network
DATE SUBJECT
July 14 1978
10:00 PM
CITY
Asbestos The Way to Dusty Death
Washington D.C.
JULES BERGMAN Asbestos is a common mineral easily
mined to make textiles cement insulation and hundreds of
commercial products The darker side is the dust When inhaled
it can start years later
the
body
towards
cancer or
.
irreversible
lung disease
MAN
Sometimes it's so dusty there that it was just
like a foggy day And one time I asked my supervisor and all
wo
he said to me Well we know that it's a little uncomfortable
but it won't hurt nobody
BERGMAN
Before this century ends asbestos will kill
'
or cause serious disease in hundreds of thousands of people
The
MAN
The real
person is crippled
effect of the disease is the
He is a respiratory cripple
living
death
MAN asbestos to any lated cancer
Fifty percent of those people who've worked around degree will die of lung cancer or some other re-
MAN
It's the same as putting a gun to your head and
pulling the trigger and the bullet has 20 years to get there
what you breathe today is going to kill you 20-30 years from now
lioma
WOMAN My mother died 10 years ago from
And my father died last year of metastatic
pleuromesothe-
edena passa-
noma ? a form of cancer
And I was stricken last May with
pleruonesothelioma
I directly attribute it to asbestos exposure
MAN Coughing
OFFICES IN YORK
LOS ANGELES
CHICAGO
DETROIT > AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES
.
supplied
|
Materal supplied by Radio TV Reports Inc. may be used for flis and reference purposes only It may not be reproduced sold or publicly demonstrated or mich
3
BERGMAN The real tragedy is that this need not have
happened There were clear warnings but they were ignored by
industry by a negligent government and by the medical profes-
sion
All failed to warn millions of workers in time
MAN ain't no need
just short of
singing
of tryin dyin
They tell me I can't
But livin like some
work at
used
all there
thing is
BERGMAN
In this program we'll look at
to the workers and other victims and who allowed
aster to take place who led them on the way to a
what this
happened
human dis-
dusty death
*
fi
BERGMAN Georgia Tech had some great football teams in the early 50s and Franklin Brooks was part of them The Yellow Jackets played in four consecutive bowl games and Franklin Brooks played in all of them That's him number 60 making the tackle
This is the Sugar Bowl game of was voted the most valuable player
Ne
1956.
Franklin Brooks
Summers he worked in an insulation plant like this
with asbestos board and pipes
It was dusty
one told him
it was dangerous
coach
Football
By age 42
was his life he was back at
First as a player then as a
.
Georgia Tech an assistant coach
asbestos
Then he
cancers
got
sick
mesothelioma the most deadly of
:
FRANKLIN BROOKS
I'd say it's worsened lately because
I have the most severe pain that I've had and I have a real
ness of breath
I've had to get an oxygen tank in my room
I haven't used it yet but it won't be long before I think
shortAnd
I'l
have to use oxygen
I can't walk fast or walk up steps
If I do I get out
of breath That's an indication that things are not as good as
they were the shortness of breath and the severe pain that I have
BERGMAN
The asbestos dust that does the damage has to
be magnified thousands of times before you can see it Two hundred and fifty thousand of these specks laid end to end would equal one
inch It was just such specks that changed Franklin Brooks life
BROOKS
I was just about a pounder and that's what
I weighed when I became ill
I'm down now to about 140.
I wear
my turtleneck to hide the loss of my muscles
ee
Sr
I'm not talk to
it you
I have two children sure that they realize
one
how
youngster 20 and a daughter 16
serious it is
I've tried to
them at times but they're very reluctant to talk about
know and my wife is reluctant to talk about it
and for
MRS
it's going
a miracle
BROOKS I think one day it's going to all disappear But 1 guess not
Well maybe Because we love him
to get better I'm hoping
Clip of woman saying prayers with Frank Cullen
BERGMAN
Frank Cullen is too sick to go to church so
the church comes to him
Clip of praying
last
BERGMAN
It's been more than 30 years since Frank
worked with asbestos That was during World War II
Cullen
Clip of praying
serving
BERGMAN
Frank Cullen was a boilermaker
on destroyers like the U.S.S. Davidson
during
the
war
E
-
FRANK CULLEN Every time you did 2000 hours you'd have
to remove the asbestos on the lines While they were doing this
you'd
soot
be walking in You name it
all this garbage
it was all there
asbestos
all
over the place,.
_ MAN singing
I did my part in World War II got
for the nation
Now my lungs are all shot down there ain't
pensation
I'm going to go to work on Monday one more time
going to go to work on Monday one more time one more time
going to go to work on Monday one more time
wounded
no com-
I'm , I'm
BERGMAN
Frank Cullen never worked with asbestos again
-
He left the Navy married had eight children
Now he has eight
grandchildren as well
Then in 1977 he started to cough uncontrollably
DR IRVING SELIKOFF
These are Mr. Cullen's rays
This
first film in 1975 was normal
Actually his lung at the time was
\
not normal but we couldn't see it on the ray
A little over a
-
year
or
a
year
and
a half
later he began to have some problems
And
this film is in April of 1977 and you begin to see something growing
here on the lining of his chest And that's unhappy news That
turned out to be a mesothelioma mesothelioma
2
Hospital BERGMAN Dr. Irving Selikoff of New York's Mount Sinai
C
DR SELIKOFF
Our treatment for mesothelioma is not
very effective in most cases
BERGMAN
Mesothelioma is caused by what
DR SELIKOFF for it is asbestos
Well so far the only cause that we know
.
CULLEN My strength is all gone I have no strength
anymore
I can't even take the top off a catsup bottle All I
know is that I'm 60 years of age right now and my whole life
has taken a complete turn
I was figuring on retiring at 62
Now
--
I'm
able to do
not going to be anything like I
a bed case used to do
but I'm I used
not going to be
to do a lot of
woodworking and stuff like that
I'm restricted now
I don't sleep in a bed I sleep in this chair
have to elevate this chair
I can't lay in a flat bed
to sit up Otherwise 1 -- once I lay down the coughing
And ! I have starts
-
~
I'm at the point now when I have four children married
and these are the times when you should enjoy your family But
the way it is now you can't even have too many in your house at
the same time You've got to be every mindful of colds and disease
and everything that comes in Because any kind of a respiratory
disease that you get is pneumonia If you
you have
ever got
a problem pneumonia
And the biggest danger forget it You don't
have a chance in hell to get over it
Sinai
for
BERGMAN a week of
About every month chemotherapy
Frank Cullen goes
into Mount
CULLEN
If this doesn't work then that's it There's
,
nothing else open for me at the present time
Sometimes I feel that my lung is pulled up
golf
then
ball and 1 get a little pain but not it goes away You're never completely
anything free of
where you can see you were really feeling good
tight as a
too -- and you know
BERGMAN Frank Cullen is deeply in debt The Veterans Administration has denied his claim for compensation saying he
can't prove that his Illness came from his service during World War 11. He is the victim of an indifferent Navy a Navy that for too many years deliberately ignored the dangers of asbestos And
we'll look at that next
%
*
*
with than
BERGMAN
In a sense it all began back in
the frnatic effort to build enough ships to win
a million men and women worked around the clock
World War 11
the war
More
in these ship-
0
0
2
yards and the use of we're seeing today a back to those days
asbestos jumped dramatically Part sharp increase in asbestos disease
of what goes
Asbestos is safe and useful as an insulator and flame-
retardant as long as it remains intact or is safely covered That's why so much of it is used on ships boilers and pipes But when it
breaks down or is disturbed the microscopic asbestos dust is released can be inhaled and ultimately cause cancer
In the rush to build thousands and thousands of ships
no one really considered the health hazards Ships to carry goods to our fighting men and allies around the world and warships a
huge fighting fleet all using large amounts of asbestos
AY
they
CHARLES EYE The Navy during
built a tremendous armada to rain havoc
the and
early war years
hell on the whole
world
And we did that
BERGMAN Charles Eye of the Asbestos Workers Union at
the Long Beach Naval Shipyward
AY
EYE And today we have workers who are dying asa result
of that tremendous Navy The only thing that happened is the guns quieted but the disease that we built into that ship now has turned on the person who built it And we continue to kill our own at the -- actually at a rate faster than we did -- or number more than what we did during the war
ABC
News
BERGMAN The Navy could have avoided today's disaster
has obtained Navy documents never before made public that , , |
tell the scenes story
1947 review warneddangers
asbestos dust But took almost 30 years for the Navy to act Finally Fa1974 Navy said it would limit the use of asbestos
aboard its ships
At about the same time shipyard unions at the Electric
Boat Company Groton
became concerned They
Mount Sinai Hospital
Connecticut which makes
called in Dr. Selikoff's
nuclear submarines
specialists from
-
DR SELIKOFF
We examined a thousand men who were actu-
ally in the
because in
yard at the time general when you
We didn't expect to find too much
examine people who are working well
those are the healthy people and the fellows who are sick aren't
there anymore
And we were rather surprised to find that about
half of them had changes on their rays which were rather typical
of what we find with asbestos
BERGMAN
Half of them
DR SELIKOFF
Yes
And mind you we tended to examine
only the men who were there 15 or more years
We examined carpen-
ters and electricians and riggers and machinists radiation tech-
nicians guards truckers all sorts of men who worked in the yard
welders for example boilermakers painters And among them 50
had abnormal rays
.
Did
they
BERGMAN The Navy and Electric
let you see worker records
Boad
did they help you
case
DR SELIKOFF No.
didn't seem to think it
The
was
Electric Boat Company in any
wise to show us any records
BERGMAN Did they help you at all
DR SELIKOFF Well no
BERGMAN Even today Navy yards aren't as clean and
therefore not as safe for the worker as they should be The Navy
did take some positive steps at the Philadelphia Navy Yard with
powered vacuum cleaners and protective clothing for the asbes-
tos workers
This was a
an asbestos substitute
demonstration
put
on just
for
us
using
*~
The Philadelphia yard was the only one the Navy would would let us film But ABC News has obtained internal Navy reports which show that its own inspection of that same yard found numerous violations damaged asbestos insulation inadequate vacuum cleaners and protective masks and loose asbestos scrap around the yard And
there is the same pattern of violations at other yards
Norfolk personnel protection inadequate new workers
'
not properly trained
improper
And at Puget Sound lack of proper protective clothing use of respirators and a weak enforcement program
The conclusion is inescapable jeopardized
Workers are still being
John Cleary of the Metal Trades Council at Puget Sound
JOHN CLEARY
So they get in there with saws saber saws
sometimes which blow air around and they just chop it away some-
times with hammers even
And it looks like a snowstorm when you're
in there pulling these valves and these steam lines out to take
them back to the shop to work on them
BERGMAN The Navy's medical program is also deficient Although it made a big show of examining 5000 workers at the Philadelphia yard the medical procedures were inadequate You cannot do a proper study for asbestos disease without using specially
qualified doctors to read the rays They're called B readers
The Navy did not bother to hire B readers for the Philadelphia
medical survey
The result was that the Navy found only five per-
cent of its shipyard workers had asbestos lung changes
a figure far below any other such study
several
Nor years
were there any B ago when Charles
readers at
Eye became
the Long Beach Shipyard suspicious of the Navy
exams being given
Ay
;
EYE Everyone was told the same thing Everthing's
all right Everybody's in good shape We didn't believe it We
started getting suspicious after looking at some mortality rates
And so my local sent 22 rays to Dr. Selikoff which is
sample wise duration of trade that sort of thing
a cross-
And 17
of the 22 came back with asbestos disease
Eye's
BERGMAN father also
Somoef those 17 have
a shipyard worker has
already
died of
died Charles asbestosis and
cancer And Eye himself now has a problem
.
AY
EYE
I have about 25 of my lung capacity is gone as
a result of asbestos disease
I tire very easily going up and
down stairs doing any type of physical hard physical work 1
become very fatigued very rapidly
tinuous
But once
thing and
you get it it's irreversible ultimately I'll die from it
It's a con-
BERGMAN Finally the Navy has started using qualified
doctors to interpret the rays
-
-
,
In the study just completed at Long Beach covering 6640
employees
they
found
that
1061
almost
16 --
that's
1
out of
6
--
with asbestos abnormalities That was for the whole yard
But for older workers those who have worked at Long Beach for
more than 22 years the figures doubled One out of every three of
them has asbestos disease and were told there is no cure
At Pearl Harbor the Navy seems more concerned about
publicity than about
the asbestos
the health of its workers
program began only 237 out
Four years after of 3000 workers
have been examined and only 72 of them have been rayed
A
record
urging
so bad the yard's commander wrote other yard commanders they move more rapidly to quote get ahead of the power
curve before the media make us look like we are being dragged
kicking and screaming into doing what is legal and the right
thing end quote
At the Mare Island Navy Yard the unions not the Navy
ie
we
arranged for a study by Dr. Polakoff an occupational health sp^'ci-
alist from Berkeley California Dr. Polakoff examined 359 shipyard
workers and found was one of them
that
59
had
lung
abnormalities
John Morris
JOHN MORRIS Hey when you're down there this stuff
exposed
And once
you you
know hit it
It's laying or tear it
there it's dormant you know it's going to fly on people it's
going to get on there's nothing
them and it's going to kill them you that they're doing about it right now
know
And
MAN
It's not the government that has to answer to the
widow The widows call me up and say Where do we go from here
It's not the government that has to answer to the worker who's
coughing and short of breath
It's not the government who has to
try to file a claim so workers who worked for the government or
in private Industry for 30 years can get some compensation whether
he's alive or not to help his children get through school
It's
not the government who's answering these questions
BERGMAN The Navy has been just as law with its ships
HO
as it has asbestos
with its shipyards
It's newer ones are
It's older ships were built with supposed to be asbestos wher-
ever suitable substitutes can be found But these insulating pads
containing 80 asbestos came off two
Elliott and the U.S.S. Tarawa Both
brand vessels the U.S.S.
ships were built by Litton
Industries at this shipyard in Pascagoula Mississippi When we
asked Litton told us flatly that it used But these pads came from those ships and
no asbestos on the ships
there is a suitable sub-
C
stitute
So the Tarawa and the Elliott join the rest of the fleet
still using asbestos insulation And the Navy can't asbestos repairs at sea to cut the down the exposure
seem to control of its own
;
crewmen
Last October the Navy again prohibited asbestos repairs
at sea unless stringent safeguards were met The directive complained that some ships were not complying with the original orders
and they were not because they could not
U.S.S.
comply board
Again unreleased Navy Enterprise responding to
documents The that directive
Commander of the said he could not
because the necessary filters and respirators were not on
Atlantic
More fleet
recently and more damning found that 85 of the ships
a Navy study of the inspected had no controls
at all on asbestos repairs performed at sea
happens
And so it goes The Navy issues orders and nothing much
MAN
You have this giant marshmallow Navy and where do
you grab the
it's hard to
corner to get a marshmallow personally get mad at -- if
down on you had
its back
And
somebody standing
there denying it one
unions could go after
single
that
person could single out then the But we've got the Navy and we've got
all their subordinate agencies and they're contracting this work
out
And all of them deny that any of them have an asbestos prob-
Iem and that they're doing their best And as Charlle said they
just snow you under with paperwork
BERGMAN We confronted the Navy with its own reports
surveys and audits
It refused to comment Why The major reason
hundreds of millions of dollars in unsettled claims
The government has
advising shipyard workers to
to pay for the exams
finally taken a tentative step by
see their doctors
It didn't offer
-
now
yard
Before our asbestos epidemic is over many years from
those claims will climb into the billions not only from shipworkers but others as well And we'll look at that next
*
*
k
"
_ BERGMAN The riverside
a grimy part of an old
tories and warehouses
industrial
Up on the
section of Paterson New Jersey town an area full of small fachill rows of modest houses
;
All in all a drab and depressed area
When the history of asbestos is written this building
now a paint warehouse will play a grimly prominent role It used to be the Union Asbestos and Rubber Company UNARCO for short
'
During World War 11 it made asbestos products for our ships
At
at all
The
day's
the time UNARCO operated here there were no controls
plant was filthy
And we now know that as little as
heavy exposure can start the deadly cycle
The men who worked here have been studied more thoroughly
than any other group of asbestos workers
About 35 of them have
already died of cancer and other asbestos diseases That's more
than three times as many as would normally die of cancer
The
study now 10 years old is still going on
WOMAN
Your father worked at Union Asbestos and
Company in 1944 and we are interested in what he has since then and to see if the effects of the asbestos
been dust
fest themselves 30 years later
Rubber
doing
mani-
BERGMAN The UNARCO
studied So far 35 of them The family connection is a new
workers
as well
concern
families are also being
have lung abnormalities
ge
oan'
ete
\
(
10
lungs was
insulator
A week before this
removed Her only
in a Massachusetts
interview one of Mrs.
exposure came from her
shipyard
Barbara
father
Gury's
an
MRS BARBARA GURY
When he came home his clothing was
covered with asbestos
And I don't know if you know what it looks
like
It's a chalky substance when it accumulates and dries on
clothing and it forms like a dust particle when it's touched
And that was my exposure to asbestos being hear his -- near my
dad when he came home from work and when my mother took his work
clothes and shipped them over the porch to take off the excess dust
before washing them
father
BERGMAN
your father at the
You had mentioned
bus stop
you
used
run
down
and
meet
.
MRS GURY Yes very often and give him a he was covered at that time with the asbestos and it inate in the -- you could see it flying around in the
big hug And
would dissem-
atmosphere
REPORTER How did you react when the doctor told you
MRS GURY I was frightened frightened to death 1
knew -- I recalled every day of my mother's illness recalled my '
father's illness and knew what was in store for me And I was
that much more read and I was frightened to death
I'm
year mother of two children a happily married woman with
everything to live for It sort of puts a damper on everything
for me
REPORTER
Ed how did you feel when you first heard it
ED GURY
I cried
| -- I wasn't angry I don't think
I think I was very upset and perplexed
! couldn't believe it
|
didn't know anything about asbestos or anything at that time
1
knew her father had worked with it and that's what caused his
cancer
And I knew that the mother had also had mesothelioma
And
I couldn't at that particular moment in time relate Barbara's meso-
thelioma with the parents But as the year went on boy it got
more bizarre and more bizarre
And I can honestly say that if it
hadn't been for God and the gift of faith that I would have probably jumped out a window a long time ago
I have two small children whom I love very very much
And the
the other day
I
was
--
street here to Central
I left the hospital and I went across Park and I sat on the rock over there
to get a little fresh air and sunshine and I saw this father playing with his year boy and his six- or seven daughter and they were playing baseball which I do at home with my two kids And the girls wasn't as good a hitter as mine but
the -- I just sat there and cried my eyes out because that is
what it's done to my wife
&
C
11
almost
BERGMAN commonplace
Mesothelioma
once
very
rare
is becoming
DR SELIKOFF
From 1930 to 1960 we saw three cases
one every 10 years
And we're
1200 beds we do almost 20,000
And imagine we only saw three
Holland had three cases on his
a pretty big hospital we have
operations a year and so forth
cases in 30 years
Now why Dr.
service at any one time
BERGMAN
It cost Yale University 250,000 to get rid
of its asbestos problem Evry ceiling in its story Art and
Architecture Building had to be removed They had all been sprayed
with asbestos Two thousand students use this building every day
Despite all we have known fectly legal until 1973 to apply it 50s and 60s thousands were built
about asbestos it inside buildings that way
was per-
During the
Dr. Robert Sawyer of Yale's Health Service set the clean-
up in motion
DR ROBERT SAWYER
What drew our interest was the facts
that these open and exposed ceilings as we found them had begun
to break apart and to disintegrate And for instance these books
that were up near the ceiling were -- if you put the book in it
might strike
the asbestos
the ceiling a little bit
It would be covered
material The people would blow them clean on
with
opening
them
BERGMAN The layer of asbestos dust
DR SAWYER
The cloud of dust would come up
This we found in persons doing maintenance work in the
building or doing custodial work dusting For instance we found
that the custodians would go through the library area holding a
plastic bag in front of their face and dusting the fallen debris
into the bag
And we used monitoring devices to find
out what the exposures to these individuals were
We were quite
surprised to find that the levels found in such situations not only in this building but in many many more that we've looked at since can be in the vicinity of or indeed on occasion exceed
industrial standards set by the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration for industrial exposure
BERGMAN
This is the World Trade Center in New York
That's asbestos dropping on the worker below
Another building in New York The dust contains asbes-
An apartment complex in New Jersey Ceilings throughout
12
f
were sprayed because they
with asbestos Some tenants are suing
consider the asbestos a health hazard
the
builder
Even after 1973
you called it decorative that use
asbestos could still be sprayed if It took EPA five more years to stop
School buildings too Thousands of them had been built with asbestos ceilings A government inspection in New Jersey of 48 schools showed thirds of the ceilings were damaged with considerable risk of asbestos contamination The government now recommends they be removed
And in this country what goes up eventually comes down
Most buildings except
and demolition spreads
the the
very dust
oldest contain some asbestos
into the area an unintentional
danger fora product that serves man in many useful ways
asbestos
Almost dust in
everyone who their lungs
lives
in an
urban
area has some
Despite all that was known about asbestos the EPA only
recently tightened up regulations for house wreckers to keep the dust from spreading But there are still many people who work -
with asbestos and don't know that if can be dangerous
All brake linings contain asbestos some as high
C
as 73 As they wear down or when they are replaced asbestos
dust is released
Three years ago government scientists recommended that
the asbestos dust be vacuumed out instead of blown But the Occu-
pational
dation
Safety
A 1976
and Health Administration ignored the study found that 25 of the mechanics
recommen-
sampled had
lung abnormalities Nine hundred thousand workers are exposed to
lining dust
boxes
Nor is there Of the five we
any regulation on examined one had
labeling lining
rather detailed precau-
tions printed on It of the box where it
Two had caution labels one on
was not likely to be seen
And
the two
bottom
others
had no warnings at all
And the argument of how much asbestos is too
tos still goes on
The current standard is two fibers
centimeter of air The government wants that lowered
resists
much asbesper cubic
Industry
Dr. Paul Kotin Medical Director and Senior Vice President of Manville the largest asbestos company in the world
DR PAUL KOTIN
In the case of asbestos I think that
13
we or
are creating no asbestos disease
Gl cancer as you
at two fibers
career
lung cancer mesothelioma per cc or less for a working
BERGMAN Then why do the government's top experts want to see the two fibers per cc lowered to .5 or even less
wrong
DR KOTIN Because the government before and they're wrong now
experts
have
been
BERGMANBERGMAN
Didn't you once say that there is no such
thing as a safe level of exposure for any carcinogen
DR KOTIN
I sure did and
Surgeon General's committee in 1970.
tell you I'm smarter now
I said it as part of the
And I guess I'm going to
-
BERGMAN
a recurrence of the
tors disagree
A lot
past
smarter now but smart Dr. Kotin thinks yes
enough to prevent
Most other doc-
Over the years industry and government too often be-
lieved that the limits then in effect were good enough And time
and again they were wrong
.
What is mmost ost disturbing is that the dangers have been
G
known for decades and no one did anything about it
*
*
*
just
been
BERGMAN
It's not
discovered
We've
as if known
the dangers of
about them for
asbestos have 70 years
1907 Asbestos disease is reported
In Great Britain
for for the first times
1918 The first report in the United States The
government says there is an urgent need for more investigation
of the health aspects of asbestos manufacture
But no one was
listening The war to end all wars was ending America was
about to enter the Roaring Twenties
Even if the workers knew anything about asbestos --
and they rights
didn't -- there wasn't
They could be fired at
much they could do They
will
Unions were either
had few weak
or nonexistent
3927ghe 3927ghe Berrsh Berrsh Medical Medical Journal reports on asbestos
No one seemed to care
Americans were more intrigued by Babe
Ruth's 60th home run and an adventurous young pilot Charles
Lindberg flew the Atlantic all alone President Calvin Coolidge
said the business of America was business He didn't say anything
C
C
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14
about the worker
1928
The Journal of the American Medical Association
reported on a young woman who died of asbestosis
It wondered why
asbestos disease wasn't getting more attention One reason Ameri-
cans were living it up
Prohibition had been in effect for almost
10 years but there was still plenty of booze to be had People
were having a good time No one cared
1930 The British now sure Dr. E.R. Merriweather examined found asbestosis 26 of them
Shortly therte heaBf ritt ishe tor ok the first steps reduce workpl her a e c did ane ything
were
hard
By
to
this
come
time by
America was
deep
into the Depression
Jobs
Clip of song Brother Can You Spare a Dime
BERGMAN
Occupational health
Workers got low
competed for what jobs priority Nothing was
there done
were
1934 The British medical magazine Lancet reports on
100 cases of asbestosis the first cases of
.
lung cancer in
asbestos workers
1935 In this country Dr. Anthony Lanza in a study done for the industry recommends control measures in asbestos factories The industry he says seems quite uninformed of the hazard Little if anything is done
asters
There
drought
were other things to worry creating dust storms
about
natural dis-
Clip of song I'm a Dust Bowl Refugee
BERGMAN By this time asbestos production is growing from under 100,000 tons in 1910 to 700,000 tons at the end of World War 11. Millions of people have been exposed And still
little is done
Manville
1949 Dr. Ken Smith Medical Director of the JohnsCompany studies 708 asbestos workers and finds 534 with
Jung changes
John McKinney the President of Manville
medical
Did you director
know Dr.
Ken Smith when
he was your corporate
JOHN MCKINNEY Yes I did
15
-
BS
<
employees
BERGMAN and found
You know he an asbestos
did a study of 708 danger way back in
Manville
1949
MCKINNEY
Yes
BERGMAN' Smith called for a warning label on asbestos
packages and has since ~- and it was overruled he's testified
for business purposes
He was told it would hurt business
MCKINNEY
I know nothing about
reason for it
I know that Dr. Smith has
I don't know that that's accurate at all
that that that was the testified to that but
BERGMAN Well it's sworn testimony in a federal court
about a
MCKINNEY Undoubtedly We think Dr. Smith lot of things including his own policies
was
mistaken
-
ports
eyes
BERGMAN on asbestos and did very
By the 50s and 60s there are scores of reBut the government turned its back closed its
little
sician
Dr. William Johnson a former Public Health Service phy-
.
.
DR WILLIAM JOHNSON
The U.S. Public Health Service
conducted surveys of these plants under assurances of confidentiality They essentially shared the data between themselves and the companies and in a few instances with state agencies which traditionally have not been very aggressive as far as occupational
health protection
state
BERGMAN
governments
What you're saying is that the government and companies worked together
DR JOHNSON
Yes very much so
BERGMAN
Doesn't that amount to collusion
fair
to
DR say
JOHNSON
If you want to call
it that
I think it's
Lo
let's --
Unfortunately
let's treat the
I think there was an attitude of Well worker as a guinea pig out there in that
plant and let's expose him over a lifetime
Let's see how many
of them develop problems with asbestos diseases Then
maybe in that way over a long time we can determine what a safe
level of exposure to asbestos is
DR SELIKOFF What we're seeing now is the result of
our inadequacies inspections that
of the past of research that wasn't done ofpro-
weren't made of regulations that weren't pro-
.
hy
16
duced of laws that weren't passed of studies that were never started And now unfortunately we're paying that price Unfortunately too it's the people who worked under those circumstances that are paying the price we're not
went to tion to
ments
It's unhappy to think that these people like Mr. Cullen work thinking that somebody must be looking at the situasee that it was safe or they knew about government departIndustrial hygienists and scientists and so forth And
there was no somebody
MAN singing
wounded for the nation
I did Now my
my part in World War II lungs are all shot down
got
there
ain't no compensation
I'm going to go to work on Monday one
more time
I'm going to work on Monday one more time one more
time
I'm going to work on Monday one more time The doctor
says I smoke too much he says that I'm not tryin He says he
don't know what I got but we both know he's alyin
I'm going
to go to work on Monday one more time
I'm going to go to work
on Monday one more time one more time
I'm going to go to work
on Monday one more time The last time I went near my job I thought
my lungs were broken Chest bound down like iron bands I couldn't
breathe for choking
I'm going to go to work on Monday one more
time time doctor
I'm going I'm going
says both
to go to go
lungs
to work on Monday one more time one more
to work on Monday more more time
The
are gone there ain't no way shake it
But
I can't live without a job somehow I've got to take it
m
going to go to
work on Monday
work on Monday
one more time
one more one more
time time
I'm going to go to I'm going to go to
work on Monday one more time
They tell me I can't work all
there ain't no need of tryin But livin like some use thing
is just short of dyin
I'm going to go to work on Monday one
\
more time
I'm going to go to work on Monday one more time