Document J3GJGv9b2pQjGwvpn71BN3LDZ

FILE NAME: Warning Labels (WL) DATE: 2016 June DOC#: WL015 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: Journal Article - A History of Industry1 Responsibility to Warn of Job Dangers before OSHA AJPH ' i :i C!\~' ` roueatt. the individual... to a Sane Appreciation of the Risk" A History of Industry's Responsibility to Warn of Job Dangers Before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Daind Rosuei, PhD, and Geiald Markowitz, PhD 28 Public Health Then and Now Peer Reviewed Rosner and Markowitz AJPH January 2016, V ol 106, No 1 A JP H II S"Gi<V " s.Csi cl 'Ci cl v "v y' T !(J D o Y I Ol v ' ' A 1 J>iC Vc'Oi Stjl '> <! ' < ' J tC \ `C `J i^l\ > t-d - t t.j ' t~( e*^l- > ' '- V j ' i A A Vs v,0 > '< V V < r ' ' lO h SLO f V 0 O C A _ ,, '3 j O v ' '-ri ' J 3 * '0 6 0 J L ' i W d i \ > A ) i_Xd A ! 'je l l OV' 'VV y r d j . n k - c m n n<' : o a o k p,.. "l t a a U ki c ' o a i a a ; r. o p n v d o * a / " `i c , k o b ' - d ^ c k " a w e : : <t, ' T w o <c s o \ ' > u l r * > q | a . n p ' w o < r < -*bo j l a o vboj,, v /t a c y ' 0 0 usd O iQ l( \ ' N ) 0 A m 1<XK ' V ' 0 0 0 3 <0 . W d ' 0 r' (1 ; A " , ^ A ' f `d 0 V 0 , k K 'O l\s O n - - k " o : I K ) ' o' A'* j;k * k I >\i / > u 't o ' A o H / m c o k x * \ o si, i ^ o r T - r r o j ' ' ;> >o j j H1 0 ` A ' A f ' ',*>* h p U o i k o v o <v t v * c o c a y ; cv i < ' | ; ( v a c - j co a c a a c o Ig ! o , : A , '< ; o M c a ' " < , / c H ' t y , W c o \ ' 0 W ip <' The Occupational Safety and Health Act o f 1970 and the Workers Right to Know laws later in that decade were signature moments m the his tory ot occupational safety and health They enshrined in law the principle that employers had a responsibility to protect their workforce in part by in forming them ot the potential hazards ot the substances they woiked with and the chemi cal makeup o f the matenals they encountered as part of their work Today, we take for granted the idea that workers hate a right to know about the dangers o f the jo b Undei new federal and state regula tions, the means ot m fonnm g workeis about the hazaiclous materials they use can take many forms material safety data sheets, contatrici labeling, warning posteis, even lectures on safety and health organized bv formal labor--management committees Although there is a rich literature about warnings tor consumers, particulaily as it addresses pharmaceuticals and food safety,1 there is relatively little that explores the rich, of ten fraught, history o f warnings and education about danger in the workplace in the era before the passage o f the Occupational Safety and Health A c tJ We look at part o f that his tory, and we show that modern "standards o f behavior," that is, ethical responsibilities o f industries to protect the work force bv educating them "to a sane appreciation o f the risk" developed duiing the first half of the 20th century In the face of labor challenges regarding the control o f the work process and the resistance o f management to laboi demands, industry reasseited its " right" to control the work floor and, at least i hetoi lcallv. acknowledged its obliga tion to provide a safe workplace for its woikforce Part o f that obligation, industiv said, was to provide information to then workeis about the dangers they faced horn the machinery and materials with which they came in contact Tlnough a variety o f tiade associations, fedei ations, and oi gamzations, such as the National Civic Federation, the National Safety Council, and the Manu facturing Chemists Association, industry engaged in " preemptive reform," a " co-optation ' o f chal lenges that radicals and unions, such as the Industrial Workers o f the World during the progressive era and the Congress o f Industrial O rganization during the Cheat Depression, were mcoiporating into their demands over wages, hours, and working conditions ' " Progressive" industry initiatives on warnings and safety cam paigns would hopefully eliminate or delay blame o f and litigation and regulatory efforts against industry for many decades It was not until the late 1960s that the inadequacy of such a voluntary approach was challenged by labor and the left The Occupational Safety and Health Act and other icgulatory legislation put m place legal mandates to require information and warnings on the variety o f chemicals, asbestos, lead, and other dangeious materials In response, major industrial leaders aigued that such legislation was unnecessary because o f business's existing codes of conduct l A*U Y 2(r-C LN IuR v B A C X C R O jK b The 19th-century economy depended on laying thousands o f miles o f taihoad, digging canals, logging the nations forests, mining iron, coal, and lead, harvesting crops, picking cotton, and running textile mills 1'hese in turn depended on the hackbreaking exploitation of men. women, and children who lived on meager wages ABOUT THE AUTHORS David Rmer n with the Center for the Hi-toiy and Etluc< of Pnhlu Health, Department of bociomtdical b cun a\ Columbia Unwasity Madman School of Public Ihalth and tin D ipan inoli of Hidoiy Columbia l aiweinty \iw \o ik , Y Y Cuald Maikowtt? h wall the departments of Hi-tory and Inn rdnaphuaiy btmhe', John Jay Colhoi and Graduati Ceuta, City I'nwauty of StwYoik, I\<wYoik, \ 'Y, and the Depiirtnu nt of bociomcdicid bacila', Columbia (.'nwcisity Madman School ot Public Health Coireepondence should be <ait to David Ro-mr, PhD, (dentei foi tin Hi-toiy and Ethic' of Public Health, Madman School of Public Hi alili, 122 Wed I fidili bind, Room 934, \ew \oik, Y Y 10032 le-nuitl dr2d9@cohnnhia edit) Reprints can be ordered at http //wwwatph or# by clicking the ''Reprint''' link Thi' article in i' <iccepted September 12, 201 January 2016, Voi 106, No 1 AJPH Rosner and Markowitz Peer Reviewed Public Health Then and Now 29 AJPHHb Okv or as slaves But, by die end o f the 19th century, the growing industrial econom y took its toll on the skilled woikforce as well as the traditionally exploited class o f African Americans living as sharecroppers on farms and fields o f the South, first- and second-geneiation immigrants, and men, women, and thildicn now employed m the huge mdustnes o f the countiy By the end o f the first decade o f the new century, the " death roll o f lndustiy'' and the image ot the industrial factory as a slaughter house o f cattle and woikers alike, combined with laboi uniest and sti ikes am ong steelworkers, miners, and even bakers and streetcar conductors, highlighted Bv 1920, I Hh NAI fONAL SAFE1 V COUNCIL, WHICH ONLY A DECADE EARLIER HAD FEW ER THAN 40 MEMBERS, HAD GROWN 10 RbPRfcSEN f M O R E THAN 4000 COMPANIES, WITH A C O M BINED W ORK FORCE OF MORE THAN SIX MILLION PEOPLE, the central importance o f health and safety as a class issue 4 The challenges o f socialists and progiessives, members of labor advocacy groups such as the American Association for Labor Legislation, and the intensi fied labor unrest spaiked by the Industrial Workers ot the World and other unions during the fust decades of the new century led the, leaders ot some o f the major corporations in America to seek ways to quiet discord eithei through direct repression o f strikes or through ameliorative reforms advocated by the National Civic Federation and the National Safety Council, among others1 D ining this period the National Civic Federation specifically N ought together icpresentatives o f laboi, business, and government as well as social workers, lehgious leaders, and academics to discuss, debate, and create a common progi am and an ideological justification that could provide legitimacy fot the new industrial order It, along with other leformers such as the American Association for Labor Legislation, was instrumental in piom otm g state legislation that created the workmens compen sation system throughout the 1910s and 1920s T he other organization that emphasized work condition reform was the National Safety Council, an association o f manu facturers organized in 1912/' which aigued," The education o f employees is one o f the most impoitant features in safety w ork"7The council suggested many methods foi providing this education-- from pamphlets and posters aimed at workers on the jo b to experts who provided consulting services to companies foi employees and employers alike By 1920, the National Safety Council, which only a decade earlier had fewer than 40 memheis, had grown to rep resent more d u n 4000 compa nies, with a combined workforce o f more than six million people b Other national organizations and business and trade journals started to devote moie attention to safety issues fcven textbooks weie published on this subject Willum lolman, safety engmeei for the National Lead Company and author of Safety, a text for industrial hygienists and industry safety engineers, explained that safety education required more than simply informing a worker that a jo b was dangerous" Safety was a " a common giound upon which all can meet and give thenbest without stmt" Safety was profitable fiom an economic as well as a social viewpoint because providing a safety piogram creat ed `bettei lelations between men and management'''111But these efforts weie always tempered by the realities o f the competitive marketplace and the cconomu downtui ns that pressured in dustries to seek short-term c o t savings that ended up costing workers their limbs and lives Initially, industrialists focused on tamping down laboi discoid by leducing accidents But, by the start o f the Depiession o f the 1930s, the use o f thousands of new chemicals, the grow ing use o f high-speed drills and other pneumatic devices, and the resulting exposuies o f woikers to lead and toxic dusts such as silica, coal dust, and asbestos created new long-teun threats to the in dustrial woikforce 11 As lawsuits from injured and diseased work ers incieased and as the Depres sion raised working conditions along with wages and horns, as a central element in organizing campaigns, chionic industrial diseases of long latency (e g , silu osis, asbestosis, and other pneumoconioses) became a ma jor pioblem as diseased w oikeis' lawsuits against then employers multiplied exponentially12 As one judge m the N ew Jetsey Supreme C ourt opined .it the time. It was the duty o f the defendant company to ev.eu.ise reisonable caie that the place m which it set the deceased at work should be reasonably safe foi the plaintiff and hec horn latent dangers known to die defendant comp city oc discoverible by m ordinary prudent master, under the circumstances " This meant that employers themselves had a responsibility to know the dangei s o f work and the dangei s o f the matei mis laboreis encounteied on the job, by either reviewing existing literature or testing for toxicity 30 Public Health Then and Now Peer Reviewed Rosner and Markowitz AJPH January 2016, V ol 106, No 1 I he president ofWillson Safety Products, Frederick Willson, noted the significance o f the New Jersey Supreme Court deci sion pointing out that the judges' " stress on `reasonable care " meant that responsible employers had to ha\e " knowledge about the na ture ot dust and Rime hazards" 15 The 1930s saw 1 ismg union militancy as the Depiession took its toll on workeis and their families Sit-down strikes in the auto industry, coal mines, and steel mills turned on demands foi better wages and benefits, as well as mipioved working conditions, thieatemng the hegemony that emploveis possessed in the 1920s In tins context, em ploym and their tiade associations sought both to violently repiess laboi s upsurge and to begin to articulate an ideology that blunted orga nized laboRs appeal to workers The Manufacturing Chemists' Association (MCA), repiesentmg the chemical industry, was among the first industry tiade asso ciations to artu ulate the dangers industiies faced if they ignored the i ismg clamor to level the informational playing field In its " Statement of Legal Principles" in the late 1930s the M CA stated," ! he manufacturer or one who holds himself out to be the manufacturer must know the qualities ot Ins product," and further the " manufacture! cannot escape liability on the ground that he did not know it to be dangerous " Finally, a manulactiim who puts out a dangcious article oi substance without accompanying it with a warning as to its dangerous properties is ordinatilv liable tin my dimage which results from such failuie to warn i1 In 1939, the tiade associa tion o f the paint industry, the National Runt,Varnish and Lacquer Association, sent out these guidelines to their own m em beis. and told them o f then wide applicability the " princi ples [aie] geneully applicable to situations ansing from the use o f harmful substances "T h ey made clear that these principles were applicable not only to the workforce but to the general public as well ],< In 1941,T L\le Hazlett o f the Wcstinghouse Corpoiation published an article in the Southern MedicalJournal about industrial hygiene practices m companies large and small The company doctoi needed to leain about the potential hazards of the work in that industry, even determining " any health hazaids o f new pi oc esses and materials before they are put into produc tion " He laid out the variety of ways that the workfoice could be educated about these dangers " by means o f pamphlets, post ers, talks by medical personnel and by individual contacts," and by the plant magazine Indeed, Hazlett noted that workeis were extremely receptive to such in formation " In our experience we have yet to find any literature on health subjects in waste leceptacles" 1 Ten years earliei, E R.A Merewether, a British medical in spector, and C W Price, a factory inspector, enunciated a similar idea about the responsibility o f asbestos textile factory managers, writing that the workeis needed to be educated " to a sane appre ciation o f the risk" of asbestos to their health l* With the N ew D eal's in creasing involvement in laboi and industrial affairs, some m industry aigued that it had to assert its responsibility to know about the dangers and to warn the workers about them it it was going to justify its light to icmain free of the heavy hand o f government Although the actual danger of such action by the fedeial government was slight, states weie passing workeis' compensation legislation that included provisions that compensated workers for oc cupational diseases, indicating that public attention was now focused on the work environ ment As the medical director o f Union Caibide,Thomas W Nale, later reflected on that tim e," Manufacturers could have waited foi the legislative bianch o f government to vvnte the labels foi them to protect the public," but there had been 1 grent n u ie is e in the n u m bei o f new compounds that had been synthesized and put into production jas tJiLj over-all chemical output hid skyrocketed This meant that " a great many workers in industry were un familiar with chemicals which they now had to handle" 19 As a result o f this broad discussion, in 1945 the M C A produced a manual," A Guide foi the Preparation o f Warning Labels for Hazardous Chemicals," that foimalized the pi m aples it had established in 1939 The " L-l Manual" acknowledged, " The education o f employees regarding chemical hazards is, and must icmain, the clnect re sponsibility o f their em ploveis" It defined industry's responsi bilities broadly " Information concci nmg them should, so far as practical, icach every person usrng, transpoi trng, oi stor mg chemicals " 'I hey argued, The m ost piactic.il m eans toi the scllet to disseminate this mfoi notion appeals to be by libels aftNed to containers of huzirdous chemicals, b ell ing ippropriate precautionary stitements tnd instructions stated is simplv and briefly as ciicumstances peimit January 2016, Vol 106, No 1 AJPH Rosner and Markowitz Peer Reviewed Public Health Then and Now 31 A J P H M S 0 \<v rI hat sanie year the American Industrial Hvgiene Associa tion, the vast majonty o f whose members worked for private corporations and businesses, lemforced this view o f industry's responsibility m its journal In dustrial Hygiene, maintaining that good industrial hygiene practice included educating workers about the dangers they faced on the jo b so that the worker* could piotect themselves21 VVARKiKGs AN F FHF PCS"WAR ACCORD As the country recovered from the D e p letio n and World War II ended, labor and management reached what som e histoi mns have called the " postwai accord," in which labor unions ceded contiol over the woikpla^e to management m exchange foi better wages, shorter hours, impioved benefits, and health insur ance 22 If the workplace was tes be under management control, then safety was its responsibility as well Henry F Smyth of Union C arb ide and the M ellon Institute-- the icsearch aim o f the Industrial H ygiene Foundation (IH F), which was am ong the foremost industrysponsored research institutions m the U nited States from the 1930s through the 1960s-- sum m arized the consensus of m ajor industrial leaders on com panies' responsibilities when confronted with poten tially dangerous substances It is clearly the duty o f a manufactuici to delay pioduccion o f a ihem ual until the health hazards are well enough defined so that piotcction o f lus workmen is possible This was the " responsibility of industry' and not state and federal governments He suggested that when a product was being initially developed u was appropriate to first do a quick test, but if the mate rial was going to be produced in large quantities, then the company needed to " perform m ore detailed stu d ies" 2'1By 1952 the Am encan Conference o f Governmental Industrial Hygienists, an organization o f industnal hygienists who were employed by a government agency, argued, Adequate labels for warning and identification of harmful subsumes aie necessarv for the prevention and control of a public health piobicm ' At this time, companies as diverse as Standard O il, Shell Coiporation, Monsanto, Union Caibide, Geneial Accident, the Fne and Life Assurance Corp, and Johns Manville acknowl edged the pi m ap le that it was incumbent on industry not only to distribute information it had but also to do the research to uncover what potential dangers workeis and the public might face in the use of their prod ucts For example, at an IHF annual meeting the representa tive from DuPont agreed with Theodore Hatch and noted the impoitance o f animal expenmentation m establishing the deg ret. o f danger for chemicals and products 2,1 Henry F Smyth o f Union Caibide Corporation described the piocess that should be fol lowed in evaluating the toxicity of a compound Every new compound planned oi made by research oi development laboratories should be cousuleied by the toxicology laboratory, at least to the extent of making piedu Cions ibout handling hazards If the company is planning to develop the product even on a limited basis, then us acute toxicology should be estimated by nnge finding methods Tins should be completed and predictions should be made about chtomc toxicity before any o f the compound is sold Additional research devoted to the material should be propomoned to its probable uses, to the degree of human exposure in its use, to the degree to which it teaches the consuming public and to tin m agnitude arid subtlety o f its toxic effects -7 Shell, Dow, and other large corporations had their own labot atones, but there weie othei facilities available to co n duct this research, such as at the Mellon Institute, the Kettei ing Labs, and numerous universi ties 2S In addition, companies as diverse as Am encan Tobacco, Johns Manville, Raybestos, Standard Oil, and DuPont were researching the relationship o f then product to cancer According to the indus try, the purpose o f doing the research was to inform the workforce (and the public) about the potential dangers of these products At the IH F 's annual meeting in 1956 a panel discussion o f industry repre sentatives was devoted to this subject As Theodore Hatch of the IMF explained, one large chemical company `set up an elaborate program o f educatior o f the ultimate consumer o f the m aterial" 2'' A representative o f the Geneial Accident, Fire and Life Assurance Com pany told the meeting, The common law itself imposes a duty upon the manufacture! 32 Public Health Then and Now Peer Reviewed Rosner and Markowitz AJPH January 2016, V oi 106, No l AJPH H STCPY to bring to the ittention oh the users o f Ins product and people who are in the vicinity o f its use, the dangeis which are inherent in its use or m iy flow tioni it '' In 1956, the Chairman o f the M anufacturing Chemists Association's Food Com m ittee reiteiated that the chemical industry adhered to the prin ciple that companies test their pioduct and inform the govern ment of any potential dangers 11 The medical director o f Hercu les Powder Com pany raised the question o f " whether industries should tell their employees that the nutei ial they are handling is toxic or carcinogenic" L C M cGee explained that this was not in question and that ethically workeis ire entitled to it I would suv that we must give the em ployee that knowledge so that he can undu stand and use it m coming to i conclusion as to \\h\ lie must do certain things to protect himself P W Bachman, vice-president and director o f research and development o f Koppers C o , expanded on this idea by stating, \ company his to tell its em ployees what the natuie of the materials is vs Inch they are h nulling, whether they ire toxic or carcinogenic, because sou can ncvei have a safety progum unless [you] give the people working with toxic 0! carcinogenic macenak such intoimmon By die late 1950s there was a general recognition that industryprovided wai mng labels were important instruments o f reform that wete necessary to protect the workfoice from danger but also to protect the industry fiom lawsuits Indeed, the Manufac turing Chemists' Association's Medical Advisory Committee, at its meeting m September 1958, " emphasized that manufactureis have a responsibility7to give full information on the toxicologi cal hazards o f their products" Significantly, some of the largest U S corpoiations were at this meeting as m em beis o f the committee, including DuPont, American Cyanaimd, Monsanto, Union Caibide Company, Enjay, and Eastman Kodak.'4The Navy established Military Standard 129b m 1957, which required warning labels, and the Public Health Seivice approved o f this as w ellT Despite the rhetorical accep tance o f the principle that w oikers needed to be educated " to a sane appieuation o f the risk ' o f the jo b and that industry had an obligation to know about the dangers o f its products and to inform those working with and using them of those dangers, we do not know to what extent dif ferent companies and industries met then self-proclaimed obliga tion Until a systematic review of corpoiate records and labeling is accomplished we cannot estimate to what degree these principles were put into practice What we do know is that cluiing the two decades following World War II hundreds, ami perhaps thousands, o f companies in the oil and gas mdustix, the paint and lacquei industry, the railroad industry, the steel industry, the asbestos industry, the chemi cal industry, the auto industiy, and many others ascribed to these codes in principle, if not in practice And we know that some companies, oi units of companies, did implement piograms to meet them Beginning in the 1910s, the National Safety C ouncil's focus was on warnings to workers about potential dan geis o f accidents in the work place, and they actually mounted a range of efforts to accomplish this purpose, The M C A developed a detailed guide for their membeiship that provided sample labels and guidance on how to implement warnings for a wide variety of chemical products w> We know that some companies did in fact put warnings on their products and oigamzed joint management--labor safety' and health committees In addition we know that the National Paint,Varnish and Lacquer Asso ciation, the American Petroleum Institute, the IHF, and other trade groups affirmed their lesponsibihty to m foim those who manufactured and used their products about their dangers and risks and the means to avoid them At the verv least, indus try rhetoi ically embraced its responsibility to inform workcis about danger and in some imtam es followed through Tins was ceitainly part o f business's broadei antiregulatory agenda and, at different moments, part o f its strategy to foiestall federal government intervention in the workplace neither federal nor state regulation of the workplace was necessary because private corporations weie doing it We also know that many companies and entire industries did not test their products and, even when they did, did not provide warnings or information about danger to then woikers or their customers. Classic examples abound the American tobacco industry began testing their products for carcinogenicity by the early 1950s yet fought any attempt to wain and also sought to create doubt about indepen dent studies that confirmed a relationship well into the 1990s, asbestos manufacturers performed animal testing in the 1930s yet did not begin to put warnings on any o f their products until January 2016, Vol 106, No 1 AJPH Rosner and Markowitz Peer Reviewed Public Health Then and Now ?3 A J P H H s'O iA ' che mid-1960s, the lead paim industry undeistood chat lead was killing children from at least 1930 yet continued to promote its lead paint without warnings and in fact fought state and local efforts to warn o f dangers until well into the 1950s and beyond Perhaps the signature moment in tlie history o f the modern conception o f a workers'light to know came with die passage o f the Occupational Safety and Health Au; o f 1970 in addition to establishing specific mini mum standards for workplace safety and health, many o f these standards also lequired various forms of warnings and labels toi dangeious chemicals and other materials D u iing the congres sional hearing establishing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (O SH A ) in 1968, one o f the aigumencs that industry representatives made in an effort to weaken that law was that U S companies were already acting responsibly For example, the epiesentative o f the U S Cham ber of C om n ieiceJ Sharp Queener, the safety* director of the chemi cal giant DuPont, reviewed the " voluntary organized safety m ovem ent" in the countiy es tablished by U S industry He pointed out that companies like DuPont had established toxicol ogy laboratories to identify' the dangerous properties of its pioducts and to provide infoimation that would help protect the w orkerJ/ Similarly, the chair o f the M C A s board of directors told the congressional commit tee that since 1938 the chemical industry had developed " toxicity data on well ovei 3,000 different chemicals," which were the basis o f its L-l Manual. " It was not until 1986 that O SH A recog nized the limits o f voluntary industry actions and required all manufacturis to give woikcrs material safety data sheets detail ing the contents o f ail materials used in die industrial workplace. Industry's history o f claim ing both the right to control the workplace and the concomitant obligation to piotect workeis from industrial hazards by educa tion and, specifically, warnings, helps to explain governments tentative and uneven efforts to mandate labeling, warning, and regulation o f the woikplace and occupational tlneats to health and safctyThe history of the struggle foi warnings also reflects the tiansformed social and political envuonments that developed during the Cold War In the postwar period, con servative politicians and, later, mdustry-suppoi ted think tanks and academic economists aigued forcefully that the N ew Deal activism o f government on behalf o f workers needed to be cuibed, even reveised In the immediate postwai period, the Division of Laboi Standards in the Depaitment o f Laboi, whose staff openly advocated greater piotections foi the workforce, was disbanded W OUhLRVR O f 0 INI O RM Ai ON IK A (.Obey KVA! 1Vi Aid NDA in the 1960s and 1970s-- following the publication o f Rachel C aison's Silent Spnng, the rise of Ralph Nader's consumer advocacy groups, the passage o f the Occupational Safety and Healtli Act, and the establishment of O SH A , the National Institute foi Occupational Safety and Health, and the Enviioninerital Protection Agency-- conservatives and their business allies developed the argument that government regulations far from piotectmg the population, were stifling the economy The Business R ound table, the Heritage Foundation, and, more recently and more extreme, the Cato Institute, buttressed the older ideological aigumcnts against N ew Deal re forms by stressing that they weic defending" tiaditional Aniei ica.i principles o f individual liberty limited government, free markets, and p eace"40 Industry could do a better job than government bureaucrats and heavy-handed regulations. This history provides a mixed record o f this claim by business It is true that for much of the 20th century business leadeis acknowl edged, even proclaimed, that it had the iesponsibilitv to protect workeis in their employ fioin injury, illness,and death Theie a certain irony in the history of what appears now' to be an obvi ous i ight of die workforce to be informed about the dangers the\ face at work Providing warn ings, information, and data sheeis has been impoitant in impiovmg woikers' hves and giving them the opportunity to make demands for a safei and healthier woikplace Conversely this effort was foi too long co-opted by a business com munity that sought to maintain control o f the workplace and to stifle challenges to its authority By the late 1960s, many people in the labor move ment, and American society m general, had concluded that industry's voluntary assumption o f responsibility had failed, and they successfully pushed tor the establishment of O SH A to give the federal government the right and legal obligation to protect workers through inspection, mandated warnings, and the right to know the nature and dangers o f the materials the\ encountered every day D u im g the past 30 vears, the tobacco, lead, asbestos, plastics, and other industries have been exposed foi having denied mfoi illa tion to the workforce and the public about the threat posed 34 Public Health Then and Now Peer Reviewed Rosner and Markowitz AJPH January 2016, Vol 106, No 1 AJPH H S~OPY b\ their products Despite these examples, this history shows that throughout the past centuiy industrialists have understood that workers had a light to in formation about the risks o f the industrial workplace and o f the materials they used -djPhl CONTRIBUTORS Hie luchots contributed equally to the rc'caith, w ntini' and editing ol tins irtitlc A CKNO W LEDG M ENTS Wv. are grateful u> the editors and revicvv_r' at the A JPH toi then manv helpful comments Mailm Ghovvkwanyun and Alc\ Farrill the otgam zus o f the Web site http / /\v\vu toxudocs org were also ven hclpiul fh e authors have testified on behalf o f phintilfs and state governments in a v.riecv of' oi ctipational arid environmen tal lawsuits ENDNOTES 1 Vlarnn Mosei Jon es m d Isidore D i.nci Bemubi * Poison Politics A Contentious History of Consum er Pioteetion Agunst D angeious Household Ciic-nneils in the United Stites,' dmuir.m Joimiaf of Public lhallh 163, no 5(2 0 1 3 ; 801-812, J H Young, Pwc l i od Secuuny ihc l-edcral I ood and OrigK do <>/ 1906 (Punceton, N j Princeton University Press, 1989), H M Marks, Revisiting The Origins of Compulsory Drug Prescriptions,AiturtouiJounut!of Publn lIciihh 85, no 1(1995) 109--115 2 t ) w id Lgdtnan m d Su/ann a R ankin lloh m t, A B net History ofW arnings m Handbook of Uaiuiuys, i.<,\ Miehaet S Wogaiter (M jhw ah, N j Lawrence Erlb iuin Assoc iarcs 2006), Mai k A ldru h, VPity firs/ hilutoloyy, Laboi, and Buunt " in tin Building of Anuinan Woik Sahty 1 8 7 0 -1 9 3 9 (B iln m o ie, M l) Jo h n s H opkins U m veisity Press, 1997) s See, c g , David M ontgomeiv, 7//c* /all oi t/ie Heine of Ltiiei Tim IPerfipiaii', ih, Suit and Annrnan Libor Attii'isui, /*/>-- 92 7 (New Yoik, N Y Cam bridge Umveisuv Ptess 1987), Alice Ktssiei-Hanis Otu lo tied? 1 Hntory >/ If not-Earniny IVonun in th< United Siahs (New Yoik, N Y Oxford Uni versity Press, 200 3), William Graebner C oil Mutiny Safety in the Progtessiri Ptttod (Lexington, K Y University Piess ot Kentucky, 1976), David Hnyssen, /Yefri'SiK Inequality (Cambridge, MA Hirvaid University Press, 2014), Iia Katznehon iou/tu// 7'lii \Yn> Dial and ih, (Jftyni- ot Oui Tunl (New Yoik, N Y W W Nouon, 2011) 4 See D iu d R o s n u and Gerald M ukow itz, The Cailv Movement foi Oecupationil Sifety md Health 1900--1917, in Stckuew and Hialth tu Ann nut, cd Judith Walzei Leavitt ind R o n ild l Num bers (Madison VU University o f Wisconsin Press, 1985), 507--521 E u iy legil clnllenges to reguI itorv iccempts were turned baek m the famous Supiem e Court decision LoJunt n Man York, 198 U S 45 (1906), irgutc) February 23 -2 4 , 1905, decided April 17, 1905, pp 197-198 h u p //su p re m e justi i com /cases/feder il/u s /198 /4 5 /e ise litml (accessed O ctober 22, 2015) 5 Melvvn D ubotsk\, He 57m// Be All A History of die Industrial Il'erLf/' oj the World, ibndged ed (U ib am , II Univer sity o f Illinois Piess, 2000), M u tm Sklir, Ihc (,oiporau Reconstruction ol \mencan Oipffii/isin, I8 9 0 -IV 1 6 i/ie iVLiihif, fh( Lm>, and Pohtns (Cambridge, UK C m ibndge University Press, 1988) 6 A lducb, Safety ! nsr is perhaps the most comprehensive histoiy ol the safety movem ent See also C h iistn n Sellers, iL i' .mK of the /of) i rom imfn'/riiif Disease to Lnuironmental Health Science (Chapel EIill N C Uvuveicuv of North Caiohna Pi ess, 1997) 7 Discussion o f Address, ` l he Safety Problems o f the Radioacls ' l hud An nua! Safecy Congress oi the National Safety Council, Chicago, IL Octobei l 3-15, 1914, p 249 8 Alduch, Safety rust, 107-1 ] j 9 F L H ofm an, * Mortality Fioni R espnatorv Disease in Dustv Tiades (Inotgim t Dusts) " ( TS Bineau of I^ahoi Statistics Bulletin, no 23] (19 18) 17(>--180 10 O P Tolm an ` AnAddiess Beto/e the P n g in ttn n g Sec tiot) oi tilt National Safety Council Cleveland, May 31, 1921," \aiion al Safety \ t i is , July 1921 Hi--t2 II Barn' Castleman, /Ubwes Miduaf and h g a ! Aspeds, 3rd cd (Englewood Cliffs, N J Picnticc Hall, 1990) Alan D enckson, Black J tiny Anatomy of a Publu Health Doastei (Ithaca N Y Cornell University Press, 1998), Alice Hinuiton Exploring the Danyeious Tiades (Boston, M A I ittle, Brown, 1942), S tilu s Hazards of theJob 12 David R o sie r and Ceiald M aik ow iu, Deadly Dust Sih,ou-and the On-Goiny Stmygh foi IVotkirs' Hiahh (Ann Arbot MI LJniversity o f Michigan Pi css 2006) 13 Q uoted m Frederick Willson, " The Very Least an F m p lo \tr Should Know About Dust and Fume Diseases," Salety ht/aiitui'itiy 62 (November 1931) 317 14 Willson 'Verv Least," 1 15 W anufieturmg Chem ists' Associa tion, ` L eg il Pi lnuples ' in l o ( J a s 'A Minibus, National Punt, V jim sh and Lictpiei Assoeiition ()u1y 18, 1939) 16 N itio n il Punt, Varnish md Lacejucr Assou ition Li tin to C/iO' 4 Minibus (July 18 1939) 17 T Lvle'H vzlett, ` T h e P rietiee'of In dustrial H cilth ," Soiithtru Mi dual journal 34 (N ovun b u 1941) 1128-1129 18 E R A M c te w e th u and C W Puce, Ripoif 0 F/fa/s of /Isfjcsios D 0 on tin 1 wiys and Hint Suppression in tin Aslnslos ludiistiy (London, U K Her Majesty's Stationary Office, 1930) 17 19 Thomas W Nale, T h e Fedeial, i lazardous Substances Libeling Act,' Archives of Luvtroumental Health 4 (March 1962) 29-30 20 M anuiaetuiing Chemists Association `Manual L-1 A Guide foi the P icp in t\on o f W um n g Labels foi Hazaidous Chcmic ils,' Cheuinal hnyiituriny \a t'\ 23 no 11 (1945) 9 9 2-996, 1 (adopted 1945 uvised April 1946) See also Samuel Aaron Kaplan, ` Developm ent o f Materul Data Sheets," paper dthvucd at the 191st National M eeting o f the Auicnean Cheuinal Souetv, New Yoik, N Y April 1986 h ttp //jim phys ksu/ safety/kaplan bttnl (accessed D ecember I. 201 1) 21 American Industrial Hygiene Associ ation, ` Informing the W orkei," Anu'iiean Industrial Hygiene Association Quarterly 6 no 2 (1945), 357-->59, 359 22 Steve l'i iscr md G irv (ru stle eds , I hi Ihsi and hall of tin zY'i in D ial Didst, 1930-19,80 (Punceton N j Pimecton University Press, 1990) 21 H em y F Smyth md M ellon In stitute, `Solving the P ioblem o f the Toxicity ot New ( beimcals in Industiy ' IVest Vnyinia Mediutl Journal 7 no 42 (1946) [77 St ites such as O hio adopted these stu idu ds m a variety of law's ` Legil Requirem ents tor die Pre vention and ( ontiol of Industnal Public Health ] lazaids," O lno I lealth Statute, Division o f Industnal Hygiene, 1946 24 American Cemfeieiict o fG o v u n nientil Industml Hygienists, "Transictions, ' April 1952, rcpioduced m Federal Scuu ity Agencv, Public Health Seivice, "O eeup itioml J lealth," Sep tember 1952, p 152 25 Chirles Henri Hine, N W icobsen, and Shell Development C o , "Safe I kin dling Procedures foi Com pounds Devel oped by the Petro-Chenuca! Industry," Annuutn hidintruil Hyguin Quartaly 15, no 2 (1954), 141-144, 143 26 I* Zapp, "Puic'l Discussion Health Pioblems Involved in die Miiiufaecure Silc, md Use of Toxic M atcm ls,' pre sented at Industm l Hygiene Foutichtion, 21st Annual Meeting, Philadelphia PA, April 23-27, 1956, 1rausactioiis Bulletin, no 36 (1957) 267 27 He'mv F Smyth "The Com m unica tions lines and Problems o f a T oxicol ogy Laboratoiv W oiking feu Industrv A MA A ilIiivis of Indusmal lluilth 15 (Apnl 1957) 269-273, 271 28 Jack T Gaiiett, Toxiuty Considei itions m Pollution C o n tio L " hnlmtnal ! Dotes 2 (jamitry-Februars', 1957) 17-19 29 Theodore H itch, Panel Discus sion Health Pioblems Involved m the M inuttcture, S lie, md Use ot T u \ie Materials, piescnted at Industnal H\ giene Foundation, 21st Annual Meeting, N ovem ber 1956, 'transactions Bulletin no 30 (1957) 257 30 11 S Bu ie, Pm el Discussion ileilth Problems Involved m the Mannfietiue Sale, md Use o f 1 oxu M u en als," presented at Indusunl Hygiene Foundation, 21st Annual Meeting N o vember 1956, /r.iiKiirfioto Bullen no 30 (1957) 270 31 ` Statement of ] M Gillei," Hcirings Before a Subcom m ittee of the C o m mittee on Intel state md Foreign C om merce, Fedeial Food, Ding, and Cosmetic Act (Chemical Additives m Food), H ouse ot Representatives, 84th Congiess, 2nd Session on H R 4475, `A Bill to Piotect the Public Health,' February I, 1956 (Washington D C Government Publishing Office, 1956), p i l l 32 I Latch, ` Health Pioblem s,' 272 33 Ibid , 276 34 Manufacturing Chenusts Associa tion, " Minutes o f M eeting Medical Ad visory C om nuttee," September 3 1958 35 Mihtaiy Standaid I29B, Apnl 10, 1957, p 6, paragraph 2 2 10 4 3, Ha/ nidous Chemicals " 36 Manufacturing C heivnsts Association, `Manual L-l " 37 Sec, c g Statement o f j Slurp Quccnu, US Chambci of Com m ute, U S H ouse ot ILcpiesent Uivcs, C om m it tee. on Education and Labor, Select Sul uimmittce on Labor, H ellings on H R 14816 (Washington, D C , 1968), pp 186, 206 38 Statement o f John O Logan, Univusal Oil Pioducts C o , Chairmm ot the Boaid o f D uet tors M C A US House ot Repiesencmves, Committee on Education and Labor Select Sub committee on Libor He umgx on H R I4 8 16 (W ishmgton D C 1968), p 379 39 l iu ild M irkovvitz ukI David Rosiicr, `M oic Thin Economisin The Politics o f W oikuY Safety and Health 1 9 3 2 -1 9 4 7 ' lln Milbauk Quaintly (A no 3 (1986) 331-354, D w id Rosncr and Gerald Markowitz, ` Rcvcaich oi Ydvoc icy F c d tiil O ccu pitiom l Satcty md H cilth Politics D uu ng the New D cil ' Journal of Soaal Histoiy 18, no 3 (1985) 365-381 40 Kim Philhps-Fem, limsibh Hands lln liibiinssniui s (ausadi Ayaiint tin \<u ' Dial (New Yoik N Y W W N orton, 2009), 150, Cato Institute ` Piom otm g Principles o f Libcrtv http //w w w cato otg/siipport (accessed October 22, 2015) January 2016, Vol 106, No 1 AJPH Rosrter and Markowitz Peer Reviewed Public Health Then and Now 35