Document D7pyMkv0Or3GKJREYBn6qXvB

FILE NAME: Avondale (AVD) DATE: : DOC#: AVD1 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTIOEEd \' .RADIO TV REPORTS, INC. . . 4&05 WISCONSIN AVENUE. N \'J WASHINGTON, 0 C. 244354 THE ASBESTOS lNFORr-lATION ASSOC!ATIOt1 PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT i E SBCA 5051 1l:J ~ PROGRAM ABC News Closeup STATlC!\I WJLA-TV ABC Net;-1ork DATE July I-+, 1978 10:00 PM CITY Washington 1 O.C. SUBJECT Asbestos: The Way to Dusty Death JULES BERGMAN: Asbestos is a co~mon mineral, easily mined, to make texti !es, cement, insulation, and hundreds of commercial products. The darker side is the dust. When inhaled, it can start the body toMards cancer or irreversible lung disease years later. MAN: Someti~es It's so dusty like a foggy day. And one time I asked he said to r.ie, 11 \'Jel I, v,e know that it 1 s but it won't hurt nobody." there that It was just my supervisor, and all a 1 ittle uncor.ifortable, BERGHAM: Before this century ends, asbestos wi 11 ki 11 or cause serious disease in hundreds of thousands of people. HAN: The real effect of the disease is the living deoth. The person is crippled. He is a respiratory cripple. MAN: Fifty percent of those people who've worked around asbestos to any degree will die of lung cancer or some other related cancer. MAN: It's the same &s putting a gun to your ~ead and pulling the trigger, and the but let has 20 years to get there. what you breathe today is going to ki l I you 20-30 years from now. \IOMAM: My mother died 10 years ago fron pleuromesothe- ' I iorna. And my father died last year of ~etasta7ic ecenc passa- noma (?), a form of cancer. And I was stricks::n last ;1ay t1ith pleruonesothel ior.ia. I directly attribute it to asbesTos exposure. MAN: [Coughing] , 7 2 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 r.,edica! profes- sion. Al I failed to warn mi 11 ions of workers in time. _, MM{ [ s i n g i n g ] : ain't no need of tryin 1 just short of dyin'. They t e I I me I can I t work at a 1 I , there But livin 1 I ike some used-up thing is BER m.1 AN : I n i" h i s p r o gr a rn we 1 I I 1o o k a -t wh at h a pp en e d to the workers and other victims, and who al lowed this human disaster to take place, who led them on the way to a dusty death. * * BERGMAN: Georgia Tech had some great footbal I teams in the early 1 50s, and Frankl in Brooks was part of them. The Ye! low Jackets played in four cons~cutive bowl games, and Frankl in Brooks played in all of -them. That's him, number 60, making the tackle. This is the Sugar Bowl game of 1956. Frankl in Brooks was voted the most valuable player. Summers, he worked in an insulation plant, I ike this, with asbestos board and pipes. It was dusty. No-one told him it was dangerous. Football was his life. First as a player, then as a coach. By age 42, he was back at Georgia Tech, an assistant coach. Then he got sick: mesothel ioma, the most deadly of asbes-tos cancers. FRANKLIN BROOKS: I'd say it's worsened lately, because I have the most severe pain that I 1 ve had and I have a real shortness of breath. I 1 ve had to get an oxygen tank in my room. And I haven't used it yet, but it won't be long before I think I 1 1I have to use oxygen. can't walk fast or walk up steps. If I do_ 1 getout 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 200-pounder, and that's what I weighed when I became i 11. I'm dovin now to about 140, I wear my turtleneck to hide the loss of my muscles. 3 I have two children, one youngster 20 and a daughter 16. I 1 m not sure that they realize how sarlous it is. I've tried to talk to them at times,, but they're very reluctant to talk about it, you know, and my wife is reluctant to talk about lt. MRS. BROOKS: think one day it's going to get better and it's going to al I disappear. But I guess not. 1 'm hoping for a miracle. Wei I, maybe. Because we love him. [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 ~f praying] BERGMAN: lt 1 s been more than 30 years since Frank Cul ten last worked with asbestos. That was during World War I I. [Clip of praying] BERGMAN: frank Cul !en was a boilernaker during the war, serving on destroyers like the U.S.S. Davidson. FRANK CULLEN: Every time you did 2000 hours you'd have to r em o ve t h e a s be s to s o n t he I i n e s VJ h i I e th e y we r e d o i n g th i s , y o u I d b e "' a I k i n g i n a I I t h i s g a r b a g e , a s bes to s a I I o v e r t h e p I a c e , soot. You name it, it was al I there . MAN [singing]: I did my part in World War I!, got for the nation. Now my lungs are a! I shot down, there ain't pensation. ! 'm going to go to work on Monday one more time. going to go to work on Monday one more time, one more tine. going to go to work on Monday one more tine. wounded no comI'm I'm BERGMAN: Frank Cullen never worked with asbestos again. He left the Navy, married, had eight children. NO\>/ he has eight grandch i I dren as we 11. Then, in 1977, he started to cough uncontrol !ably. DR. IRVING SELi KOFF: These are Mr. Cul I en's X-rays. This first filr:i in 1975 was norr.ial. Actually, his tung at the time was not nor8al, but we couldn't see it on the X-ray. A I ittle over a - year or a year and a half later he began to have some problems. And this fi Im is in Apri I of 1977, and you begin to see something growing here on the I ining of his chest. And that's unhappy ne\fS. That turned out to be a mesothel ioma. BERGMAN: Hospital. Dr. Irving Sel ikoff of Mew York 1 s l'-lount Sinai 4 DR. SELIKOFF: Our treatment for mesothel ioma is not very effective in most cases. BERGMAN: Mesothel iorna is caused by what? DR. SELIKOFF: Wei I, so far the only cause that we know f or i t i.s as besto s CULLEN! My strength Is a 11 gone; I have no strength anymore. I can't even take the top off a catsup bottle. Al I know is th.at I'm 60 years of age right nov,, and my whole I ife has taken a complete turn. 1 was tiguring on retiring at 62. Now -- I'm not going to be a bed case, but I'm not going to be a b Ie to do a nyt h i ng I i ke I us ed to do I us e d to do a Iot o f woo~working and stuff I ike that. I 1 m restricted now. dont sleep in a bed; I sleep in this chair. And I have To elevate This chair. I can't lay in a flat bed .. t have to sit up. Otherwise I -- once I lay dovrn, the coughing s-tarTs. -......__ tm at the point now when 1 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 ~nd everything that comes in. Becau?e any kind of a respiratory disease that you get, you have a problem. And the biggest danger is pneumonfa. If you ever got pneumonia, forget it. You don't (_' have a ch an c e i n he I I to get over i t BERGMAN: About every month, Frank Cu 11 en goes into Mount Sinai for a week of chemotherapy. CULLEN: If this doesn't work, then that's it. There 1 s nothing else open for me at the present time. Someti~es I fee! that my lung is put led up tight as a golf ball, and I get a little pain, butnot anything too -- and then it goes away. You're never completely free of, you know, where you can see you were rea I I y fee Ii ng good. BERGMAN: Frank Cullen ls deeply in debt. The Veterans Administration has denied his claim for compensation, saying he can't prove that his i I lness came from his service during World War II. He is the victim of an Indifferent Navy, a Mavy that for ~ too J7lany years de! iberate!y ignored the dangers of asbestos. And we 1 l1 lookatthatnext& with than * BERGMAN: In a sense, it al I began back in the frnatic effort to build enough ships to win a ml I I ion men and women worked around the clock \forld War 11 the war. More in these stiip- 5 yards, and the use of asbestos jumped dramatically. Part of what we're seeing today, a sharp increase in asbestos disease, goes back to Those days. Asbestos is safe and useful as ~n insulator and fla~eretardant as long as it remains intact or is safely cov~red. That's why so much of it is used on ships' boilers and pipes. But when it breaks down or is disturbed, the sub-microscopic asbestos dust is released, can be inhaled, and ultimately cause cancer. In the rush to bui Id thousands and thousands of ships, no one really considered the hBalth hazards. Ships to carry goods to our. fighting men and allies around the world, and warships, a hug~ fighting fl.eet, al I using large amounts of asbestos. Av CHARLES EYE {?.J: The Navy, during the ear I y war years, they bui It a tremendous armada to rain havoc and he! I on the whole world. And we did that. BERGMAN: Charles Eye of the Asbestos Workers Union at the Long Beach Naval Shipyward. Arf -E--f: 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 bui IT Into that ship now has turned on the person who bui It it. And we con:tinue to kl 11 our own at the -- actually, at a rate faster than we did -- or, number-wise, more than what we did durlng the war. BERGMAN: The tlavy could have avoided today's disaster. ABC News has obtained Navy documents never before made pub! ic that tel I the behind-the-scenes story. !tn:~1:.9:4:'-~hT~o\iHiesa te-.ty.::::r-ev i ew .-: .,,.-a r.n e<t ~o t:~:th e:":..d anger,~: o if as bes.to~..d us:.r_._~-:~.~_B_u r.:Lt._t90~- aJ m_o_s t- 30~ yea rs for J~ e_ ..!'l_a vy .t~~ ac:t ef Final ly';:in--~1974;--rhe- Navy said r-t would I irnit The use of asbes-tos aboard i-rs-shlpsJ At about the same time, shipyard unions at the Electric Boat Co~pany in Groton, Connecticut, which makes nuclear sub~arines, became concerned. They called In Or. Selikoff's specialists fror.i Mount Sinai Hospital. OR. SELIKOFF: We examined a thousand men who were actually ln the yard at the tirae. We didn't expect to find too much, because, in general, when you examine people who are working, wel I, those are the hea I thy peop I e; and the f e I I ows who are sick aren't there anymore. And we were rather surprised to find that about half of them had changes on their X-rays which were rather typical of what we find with asbestos. BERGMAN: Half of them? 6 DR. SELIKOFF: Yes. And mind you, we tended to examine only the men who were there 15 or more years. We examined carpenters and electricians and riggers and machinists, radiation technicians, guards, truckers, a I I sorts of men who worked in the yard, welders, for example, boilermakers, painters. And among them, 50% had abnormal ~-rays. BERGMAN: The Navy and Electric Boad, did they help you? Did they let you see worker records? DR. SELIKOFF: No. 1he Electric Boat Company, in any case, didnrt seem to think it was wise to show us any records. BERGMA~: Did they help you at al I? DR. SELi KOFF: Wei I, no. _ BERGMAN: Even today, Navy yards aren't as clean, and therefore no-t- as safe for i"-he worker, as they shou Id. be. The Navy did take some positive steps at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, with high-powered vacuum cleaners and protective clothing for the asbes- tos workers. This was a demonstration put on just for us, using an asbestos substitute. The Philadelphia yard was the only one the Navy would would let us fl I~. But ABC News has obtained internal Navy reports which show that its own inspection of that same yard found nu~erous 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. And at Puget Sound: lack of proper protective clothing, improper use of respirators, and a weak enforcement program. The conclusion is inescapableo Workers are sti I I being jeopardized. John Cleary of the Metal Trades Counci I at Puget Sound. JOHN CLEARY: So they get in there with saws, saber saws _ sometimes, which blow air around; and they jus-t- chop it away, some- times with hammers, even. And it looks I ike a snowstorm when you're in there, put I ing these valves and these steam I ines out to take them bar.k to the shop to work on them. BERG:-1AN: The Navy's medical program is also deficien-t-. Although it made a big show of examining 5000 workers at the Phi la- ~ -~ delphla yard, the medical procedures were inadequate. You cann6t do a proper study for asbestos disease without using specially 7 qualified doctors to read the X-rays. They 1 re called 8 readers. The Navy did not bother to hire B readers tor the Philadelphia medical survey. The result was that the Mavy found only five percent of its shipyar.d workers had asbestos-related lung changes, a figure far below any other such study. Nor were there any 8 readers at the Long Beach Shipyard several years ago when Charles Eye became suspicious of the Navy exams being given. Ai -E"'l'"E: Everyone was told the same thing: "Ever-thing's al I right. Everybody's in good shape." We didn't be! ieve it. We started getting suspicious after looking at some mor-ta! ity rates. And so ~y local sent 22 X-rays to Dr. Sel ikoff, which is a crosssampte> age-wise~ duration of trade, that sort of thing. And 17 of the 22 came back with asbestos-related disease. BERGMAN: Some.of those 17 have already died. Charles Eye's father-, also a shipya~d worker, has died of asbestosis and cancer-. And Eye himself now has a problem. A'/ E-: I have about 25% of my lung capacity is gone as a result of asbestos disease. I tire very easily going up and do\~n stairs, doing any type of physi<;al, hard physical work. I become .very fatigued very rapidly. But once you get it, it's irreversible. tinuous thing, and ultimately I 1 1I die from it. It's a con- BERGMAN: Finally, the Navy has started using qua!iffed doctors to interpret the X-rays. I~ the study Just completed at Long Beach, covering 6640 eraployees, they found that 1061, almost 16% -- that's I out of 6 -with asbestos-related abnor-mal ities. That was for the whole yar-d. But for older workers, those who have worked at Long Beach for more than 22 years, the figures doubled. One out of every thr-ee of them has asbestos disease, and were told there is no cure. At Pearl Harbor the rJavy seems more concerned about-bad publicity than about the health of its workers. Four years after the asbestos-control program began, only 237 out of 3000 workers have been exarained, and only 72 of them have been X-rayed. A record so bad, the yard's commander wroTe other yard co~nanders urging they move more rapidly to, quote, get ahead of the power curve before the r.ied i a make us I ook Ii ke we are being dr~gged 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, arranged for a study by Dr. Polakoff, an occupational health specialist from Berkeley, California. Dr. Polakoff exar.iined 359 shipyard ti')-" c: 8 workers, and found that 59% had lung abnorr:,al ities. John Morris was one ot them. JOHN MORRIS: Hey, when you're down there, this stuff exposed, you know. It's laying there, it's dormant-like, you know. And once you hit it or tear it, it's going to fly on people, it's going to get on them; and it's going to ki 11 them, you know. And there's nothing that they're doing about it right now. MAN: It's not the government that has to answer to the widow. The widows call me up and say, "Where do we go fro~ 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 govern~ent or in ~rlvate Industry for 30 years can get some compensation, whetha~ 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 as it has with its shipyards. It's older ships were built with asbestos. It's newer ones are supposed to be asbestos-free, wherever suitable substitutes can be found. But these insulating pads containing 80% asbestos came off two brand-new vessels. the U.S.S. Elliott and the U.S.S. Tarawa. Both ships weie built by Litton ~ndustries at this ship~ard in Pascagoula, Mississippi. When we asked, Litton told us flatly that it used no asbestos on the ships. But these pads came from those ships, and there is a suitable substitute. So the Tarawa and the El I iott join the rest of the fleet, sti 11 using asbestos insulation. And the Navy can't seei.l to control asbestos repairs at sea to cut the down the exposure 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 documents. The Commander of the Enterprise, responding to that directive, said he coul.d not because the necessary tilters and respirators were not on More recently, and more damning, a Navy study of the Atlantic fleet found that 85% of the ships inspected had no controls at a I I on asbestos repairs per formed at sea Q And so it goes. The Navy issues orders, and nothing much happens. MAN: You have this giant ~arsh~allow Navy, and where' do 9 you grab the corner to get a marshmallow down on its back? And it's hard to personal I y get mad at -- if you had somebody standing there denying it, one single person could single out, then the unions could go after that. But we've got the Navy and we've got al I their subordinate agencies, and they're contracting this work out. And al I of them deny that any of them have an asbestos problem, and that they're doing their best. And as Charlie said, they just snow you under wtth paperwork. BERGMAN: We confronted the Navy with its own reports~ surveys and audits. It refused to comment. Why? The major reason: hundreds of mi I I ions of dollars in unsettled claims. The government has finally tak~n a tentative step by advising shipyaid workers to see their doctors. It didn 1 t offer to pay for the exams. Before our asbestos epidemic is over, many years from now, those claims wi I I climb into the bit I ions, not only from shipyard workers, but others as we I I. And we' I I I ook at that next. * BERGMAN : The .. r i ver s t d e s e.c 1" i on o f Paterson , New J er s e y , a griMy part of an old industrial town, an area ful I of smal 1 fac- tories and warehouses. Up on the hi I I, rows.of modest houses. (~ AI I i n a I ! , a drab and depressed are a When the history of asbestos 1s written, this bui !ding, now a paint warehouse, wi 11 play a grimly prominent role. It used to be the Union Asbestos and Rubber Company, UNARCO for short. During World War I I, it made asbestos products for our ships. At the time UNARCO operated here, there were no controls at all. The plant was filthy. And we now know that as little as half-a-day's 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% otther.1 have already died of c~ncer and other asbestos diseases. That's more than three times as many as would normally die of cancer. The study, now 10 years old, ls still going on. WOMAN: Your father worked at Union Asbestos and Rubber Company in 1944, and we are interested in what he has been doing since then, and to see if the effects of the asbestos dust manifest themselves 30 years later. BERGMAN: The UNARCO workers' families are also being studied. So far, 35% of them, as wel I, have lung abnorr.ial ities. The family connection is a new concern. 10 A week before this interview. one of Mrs. Barbara Gury 1 s lungs was removed. Her on I y exposure car.ie. fror.i her father, an insulator in a Massachusetts shipyard. MRS. BARBARA GURY: When he car.ie ho~e, his clothing was covered with asbestos. And I don'~ know if you know what it looks Ii ke. It I s a cha I ky substance when it accumu I ates and d-r i es on clothing, and it forms I ike a dust-I Ike particle when it's touched. And that was my exposure to asbesTos, being hear his -- near my dad when he came home fro~ work, and when my mother took his work clothes and shipped them over the porch to take off the excess dust before washing them. BERGMAN: You had mentioned you used to run down and meet yo u r fat her a t th e b u s stop . MRS. GURY: Yes, very often, and give him a big hug. And he was covered at that time with the asbestos, and iT would disseminate in the -- you could see it flying around in the atmosphere. REPORTER: How did you react when the doctor told you? MRS. GURY: I was frightened, frightened to death. knew -- I recalled every day of my mother's i I lness, recalled my father's I I lness, and k~ew what was in store tor me. And I was that much more WB! I-read, and I was frightened to death. I'm a C 35-year-old mother of two children, a happi ty married woman with everything to I ive for. It sort of puts a da~per on everything for me. REPORTER: Ed, how did you fee! when you first heard it? ED GURY: I cried. I -- I wasn 1 t angry, I don't think. I think I was very upset and perplexed. I couldn'T believe it. I didn'T know anything about asbestos or anything at thaT Time. I knew her father had worked with it, and that's what caused his cancer. And I knew that the mother had also had mesothe! ioma. And I couldn't at that particular moment in time relate Barbara's mesothel ioma with the parents. But as the year \vent 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 smal I children \'ihom 1. love very, very much. And the other day I was -- I left the hospital and I went across the street here to Central Park, and I sat on the rock over there to get a I ittle fresh air and sunshine, and I saw this father playing with his five-year-old boy and his six- or seven-year-old daughter, and they were playing basebal I, which I do at home with my two kids. And the girls wasn 1 t as good a hltter as nine, but /J the -- I just sat there and cried my eyes out, because that is what it's done to my wife. ''---" I I BERGMAN: Mesothel ioma, once very rare, is becoming almost commonplace. OR. SELIKOFF: From 1930 to 1960 we saw three cases, one every 10 years. And we're a pretty big hospital; we have 1200 beds, we do almost 20,000 operations a year, and so forth. And imagine, we only saw three cases in 30 years. Now, why, Dr. Holland had three cases on his service at any one ti~e. BERGMAN: It cost Yale University $250,000 to get rfd of its asbestos problem. Evry ceiling in ii"s nine-si"ory Art and Architecture Bui Id i ng had to be removed. They had a 11 been sprayed with asbestos. Two thousand students use this bui !ding every day. Despit~ al I we have known about asbestos, it was perfectly legal until 1973 to apply it inside buildings. During the 150s,and 160s, thousands were built that way. Dr. Robert Sawye~ of Yale's Health Service set i"he cleanup in motion. DR. ROBERT SAWYER: What drew our interest was the facts that these open and exposed cei I ings, as we found them, had begun to break apart and to di'sintegrate. _And, for instance, these books that were up near the cei I ing were -- if you put the book in, it r.iight strike the cei I ing a I ittle bit. It would be covered with L:r the asbestos material. The people would blow them clean on opening them BERGf,1AN: The layer of asbestos dust DR. SAWYER: The cloud of dust would come up. This we found in persons doing nainTenance work in the bui Iding or doing custodial work, dusting. For instance, we found that the custodians would go through the I lbrary area holding a plastic bag in front of their face and dusting the falleil debris into the bag. And ~e used personnel-~onitoring devices to find out what the exposures to these individuals were. We were quite surprised to find thaT the levels found in such situations, n?t only in this building but in many, ~any ~ore that we've looked at sl_nce, can be in the vicinity of or Indeed, on occasion, exceed industrial standards set by the Occupational Safety and ~ealth Administration for industrial exposure. BERGMAN: This is the World Trade Center in New York. That's asbestos dropping on the worker below. tos. Another bui I ding in New York. The dust contains asbes- An apartment complex in ~Jew Jersey. Cei I ings throughout 12 were sprayed with asbestos. Some tenants are suing the builder because they consider the asbestos a health hazard. Even after 1973, asbestos cou Id st i I I be sprayed if you cal led it decorative. It took EPA five more years to stop that use. School bui ldlngs, too. Thousands of Them had been bui It with sprayed-asbestos cei I ings. A governr.ienT inspection in Mew Jersey of 48 schools showed two-thirds of the cei I ings were damaged, with considerable risk of osbesTos cont~mination. The govero~ent now reco~mends they be re~oved. And in this ~ountry, what goes upeventual ly comes down . Most buildings, except the very oldest, contain some asbestos; and demolition spreads the dust into the area, an unintentional danger for a product that serves man in many useful ways. Almost everyone ~ho I ives in an urban area has some asbestos dust in their lungs. Despite all that was known about asbestos, the EPA only recently tightened up regulations for house wr~ckers to keep the dust from spreading. But there are sti I I many people who work .. -with asbestos and don't know that if can be dangerous. Al I drum-brake I inings contain asbestos, some as high as 73%. As they wear down, or when they are replaced, asbestos dust is released. Three years ago, government scientists recom~ended that the asbestos dust be vacuumed out instead of blown. But the Occu-, pational Safety and Health Administration ignored the reco~mendation. A 1976 study found that 25% of the mechanics sampled had lung abnormalities, Nine hundred thousand workers are exposed to brake-I ining dust. Nor is there any regulation on labeling braka-lining boxes. Of the five we examined, one had rather detailed precautions printed on it. Two had caution labelsy one on the botto~ of the box, where it was not I ikely to be seen. And two others had no warnings at alt. And the argument of how much asbestos is too much asbestos sti I I goes on. The current standard ls two fibers per cubic centir.ieter of air. The government wants that lo11ered. Industry resists. Dr. Paul Kotin, Medical Director and Senior Vice President of Johns-Manvi I le, the largest asbestos company in the world. OR. PAUL KOTIN: In The case of asbestos, I think that 13 we are creating no asbestos disease: lung cancer, mesothel ioma, or GI cancer, as you -- at two fibers per cc or less for a working career. BERGMAN: Then why do the government 1 s top experts want to sea the two fibers per cc lowered to .5 or even less? DR. KOTIN: Because the government experts have been wrong before and they're wrong now. BERGMAN: _Didn't you once say that there ls no such thing as a safe level of exposure for any carcinogen? DR. KOTIN: I sure did, and I said it as part of the Surgeon Gene~al's committee in 1970. And I guess l 'ra going to tel I you I'm smarter now. BERGNAN: A lot smarter now, but smart enough to prevent a recurrence of the past? -or. Kotin thinks yes. Host other doctors disagree. Over the years> industry and govern~ent too often beI ieved that the I imits then in effect were good enough. And time ~nd again, they were wrong. What is mosT disturbing is that the dangers have been known for decades, and no one did anything about it. BERGMAN: It's not as ff the dangers of asbestos have just been discovered. We've known about them for 70 years. (907:- Asbestos disease. ls reported, f:or the tirst time/, rn- Great . Br.:r:ta.iJJ:.\ 1918: The first report in the United States. The governnent says there ls an urgent need for ~ore investigation of the health aspects of asbestos manufacture. But no one was I i st e :1 i ng The wa r to e nd a I I wa r s wa s e nd i ng Ar.1 e r i c a wa s about to enter the Roaring Twenties. Even if the workers knew anything about asbestos and they didn't -- there wasn't nuch they could do. They had tew rights. They could be fired at will .. Unions were either weak or nonexistent. ~t92 7_~:,:,.~13~~!!;H~P;t:fsn~?fe~cti~c~t:;: J.o urn a I ,e ports on as bes to SJ. No one seened to care. Americans were more intrigued by Babe Ruth's 60th home run; and an adventurous young pilot, Charles . ..:~#;,-;.-;9:- Lindberg, flew the Atlantic al I alone. President Calvin Coolidge .. V said the business of America was business. He didn't say anything 14 about the worker. 1,"."~- 1928: The Journal of the American Medical Association ~J 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.tor almost 10 years, but there was sti 11 plenty of booze to be had. People were having a good time. No one cared. "f930;_~:~:~The. British are_:nawsure ... Dr. E.R ..-Merri1-.,eather1 exami-ne<$--360--'tert,i-.te-workers and.,~:found asbestosis in 26% of -them. Sh or--t r y.. ther-ea f.ter ;,:;:the - British _.took :the t I rst- stsps-to:-red uc_?' ~-as b es:tos.,,..du s,t.'.:; l rt.;.:t h_e:.:J'!OF k p_ I ace .,_,-.:_N_o,,pn e: qe_r: e__ d_j_d . a__n y th li:i_g,. By this time, America was deep into the Depression. Jobs were hard to come by. [Clip of song, "Brother Can You Spare a Dime? 11 ] BERGMAN: Worker~ competed for what jobs there were. Occupational health got low priority. Nothing was done. 1934: The -British medical magazine Lancet reports on 100 cases of asbestosis,and the first cases of lung cancer in asbestos workers. 1935: In this country, Dr. Anthony Lanza, in a study done for the industry, recommends dust-control measures in asbestos factories. The industry, he says, seems quite uninformed of the hazard. Little, if anything, is done. There were other things to worry about: natural disasters, drought creating dust storms. [Clip of song, "I'm a Oust Bowl Refugee 0 ] BERGMAN: By this time, asbestos production ls growing, from under 100,000 tons in 1910 to 700,000 tons at the end of \'Io r I d ,1 a r I I t-1 i I I i o n s o t peo p I e h av e bee n ex po s e d An d s t i ! I , 1 ittl e is done. 1949: Dr. Ken Smith, Medical Director of the John~~-1 a nv i I I e Camp any , st u d i es 7 0 8 as best o s wor ker s a nd f i nd s 53 4 w i th lung changes. John ~1cK f nney, tt,e President of Johns-Mar.vi I I e. Did you know Or. Ken Smith when he was your corporate medical director? JOHN rlCKINNEY: Yes, I did. I 5 BERGMA~l: You know he did a study of 708 Johns-Manvi I le employees and found an asbestos danger way back in 1949? MCK l NNEY: 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: know nothing about tha~, that that was the reason for it. I know that Dr. Smith has tBstified to that, but don rt know -that -that I s accurate at a I I. BERGMAN: Wel I, lt 1 s sworn testimony rn a federal court. MCKINNEY: Undoubtedly. We think Dr. Smith was mistaken about a tot of things, including his own policies. BERGMAN: By the 1 50s and '60s, there are scores of reports on asbestos. But th~ government turned Its back, closed its eyes, and did very I ittle. sician. Dr. Wi 11 iarn Johnson, a former Pub.I ic Health Service phy- OR. WILLIAM JOHNSON: The U.S. Pub! ic 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 sta~e agencies, which traditionally have not been very aggressive as far as occupational health protection. BERGMAN: What you're saying is that the government, state governments, and companies worked together. OR. JOHNSON: Yes, very much so. BERGl1AN: Doesn't that amount to col I us ion? DR. JOHNSON: fair to say. If you want to cail it tha-t, I think it's Un f o r -t u n at e l y , I t h i n k t h e r e wa s a n a t t i tu d e o f , tt We ! I , let's -- let's treat the worker as a iuinea pig out there In that _ plant, and let's expose him over a I ifetime. Let's see how many of them develop problems with asbes-tos-related diseases. Then maybe in that way, over a long time, we can determine what a safe level of exposure to asbestos is. OR. SELIKOFF: What we're seeing now ls the result of Gf) our inadequacies of the past, of research that wasn 1 t done, of . inspections that weren't made, of regulations that weren't pro- "-- 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 circu~stances that are paying the orice; we're not. It's unhappy to think that these people, I ike }1r. Cul ten, went to work thinking that somebody must be looking at the situation to see that it was safe; or they knew about government departments, industrial hygienists and scientists, and so forth. And there was no somebody. MAN [singing]: I did my part in World War ll, got wounded for the nation. Now my lungs are al I shot down., there ain't no compensation. 11 m going to go to work on Monday one more time. t 1 m going to wor~ 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 1 m not tryin'. He says he don't know what l got, but we both know he's alyin'. I 'r.i going to go to work on Monday one more time. I'm going ~o go to work on Monday one more time, on-e 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 I u ngs were broken Ch est bo und d own I i k e i.r on ban ds l co u I d n ' t breathe for choking. I'm going to go to work on Monday one more t i me. I I r.i go i ng to go t.o work on Monday one more t i me , one more Time. I'm going to go to work on Monday more more time. The doctor says both lungs are gone, there aintt no way shake it. But l can't live without a job, somehow I've got to take it. I 1 m going to go to work on Monday one rnore time. I'm going to go to work on Monday one more tirne, one more ti~e. l 'm going to go to work on Monday one more ti me. They te I I me I can I t work at a\ 1, there ain 1 t no need of tryin' .. But livin' like sol":le use-up thing is Just short of dyin 1 I 1 m going to go to work on Monday one more time. I 1 1i1 going to go to work on Monday one more time