Document Dd00K1r34rnopEX7NaeQGvXMM

diseases the union members died from and how long they had been working in the industry -- he nonetheless argued passionately to anyone who would listen that the existing standards were woefully inadeouate. It was impossible to know whether he was right or not since the existing standards -- whether measured in particles or fibers -- had never been monitored except In the most rudimentary fashion, and for his own insulation workers had never been measured at all. It was not that an environmental engineer could not enter an asbestos mine or construction site and take a precise asbestos fiber count -- many were doing it -- but there was no way to compare these exposures with those that existed decades ago when workers experienced the exposures that had led to the fatal diseases of the 1960s. Over dozens of years, gradual Improvements in conditions in mines and plants, plus numerous changes in the composition of finished asbestos products and in work practices for handling those products at the job site, had made It essentially impossible to reconstruct the exposures of the past, (n short, the only thing Dr. Selikoff had to offer the American public in the 1960s was the woeful health experience of the insulation workers and a plea that some thing be done about It. . Proactive Health Efforts By tne time I Oecame Involved in the asbestos controversy in the late 1960s, Johns-Manville had undergone a major transformation as far the health hazards of asbestos were concerned. As the largest of the world's asbestos companies, with both huge mines and numerous manufacturing facilities in Nortn America. J-M had "gotten religion' big time. While not at ail convinced that Dr. Selikoffs insula tion worker mortality rates were applicable to all elements of the industry, it had the money and manpower to both clean up all its operations to the limits of tech nical feasibility and to launch itself, or instigate through its numerous trade asso ciations. any number of health studies to determine the extent of the problems. Through the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association, a huge research project was initiated and funded at McGill University in Montreal to study the mortality of the Quebec asbestos miners. It would not be a repeat of the mid-1950s study that found *no problem.' but would, instead be as thorough and as probing an epi demiological study as any industry had ever funded against Itself. More impor tantly. It would be the first major asbestos study to try to identify not only the extent of disease in a segment of the asbestos industry, but also the levels of exposure that resulted in that disease. The fundamental strategy that J-M adopted to deal with the crisis involved con ducting a wide range of both health and technical studies to determine the extent of the problem within its own operations and to develop the technologies neces 234 sary to bring t truly astoundi: on asbestos, it the Medical R himself a wellassistance an including Dr. 1 established pa where the prol the most valua it being funde asbestos comp it always struc joint purpose e Factory Inspec in policies in would shortly c the EPA and t.h To manage tilt committee, ch included Solor. consultant. Ap tions committi Solon, and eve M's two top e their assistanc ing either the problem under cousins, who t mishandled if Knowiton as oi Associates to t the British inc recently estab! dedicated sole Together with the problem ur