Document JJQZk3a1B8wEKoLKpDbONvpq2

FILE NAME: US Gypsum (USG) DATE: 1975 Aug 26 DOC#: USG063 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: Letter to EW Duffy from R Georgalis re use of spackling putty containing asbestos August 26, 1975 Mr. E.W. Duffy U.S. Gypstaa C<5. 101 South Packer Drive Chicago, Illinois 60606 Dear Sir: I have used your cccpany's products for several years. Most recently, I have "been asking extensive use of your "Taxolite Shackling Putty", as in June I bought a fifty year old house which has many cracked vails and moldings. I also removed an old medicine chest and filled the resulting space with plaster and a surface coating of speckle. In all this work I have used a disc sander to give a smooth finish prior to painting. On Saturday evening, August 23rd, I was astounded to hear on an evening TV newscast a warning that some sparkling conpounds contain asbestos fibers, and advising the public not to sand these compounds due to likely injurious consequences. On Monday morning I called the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission, for verification of the facts mentioned a the program. They verified the fact that your product did indeed contain asbestos, and that they vers considering requiring your firm to post a warning of asbestos content on the box. The BSCPSC also advised me that the Rev York Tiaas had carried an article on August 8 regarding studies made by a team'of doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital* School of Environmental Medicine which pointed out the serious dangers to the public lurking in speckling compounds due to their asbestos content. By this time deeply concerned and angry at I had learned, I contacted the School of Medicine and talked to Drs. Selikoff and Eohl, two of the research team -which had worked on the asbestos study. They both agreed that samples of your company's speckling canpounA that they had tested had shown a very M g h asbestos content, often os much as 10% . By now extresnely worried, I described " ay usage of your product and esked."^or m opinion on Vbafc possible h a m could have been caused by the ingestion into my lungs of the asbestos fibers from it. They replied that, although it is known to be carcinogenic, there is no established tolerance level for this mineral. All that is known Is that the wives and children of asbestos workers have contracted tumors merely front cooing In contact with the clothing of these workers, which contsihW small -,ascuntaTof'asbestos dustT Th^'ihirtKer 'stated' that"even admit amounts of ' asbestos ingested into the lungs were carcinogenic time boobs, whose possibly deadly effect might not become evident for twenty years or acre. They advised rae to discontinue use of your product at once. - 2- I find it difficult to believe that a major company such. yours could he so callous end indifferent to the public safety as to put on the market a product loaded with a carcinogenic agent without any written warning as to its potentially deadly contents and proper use. Because of what I must assume to he your company's indifference to our welfare, myself end my wife, who is four months pregnant, as veil as countless others who have used your product, have unwittingly been exposed to an extremely hazardous substance. Tvhat I would like answered by you sir, as director of your corporation's policies, are the following: 1. i'ere you personally aware that your company's "Texolite" Speckling Putty contained high percentages of asbestos fibers? 2. Were you aware that asbestos has been found, in several governmental and independent studies to be indisputably a carcinogenic agent, and.that vide publicity has been given to these findings in the various public media? X believe sir, in the light of what has occured, that I am entitled to a prompt end forthright answer to these questions. Very truly yours, P.alph. Georgalis 16 Horth Road Great Heck, Iew York 1102^ RG:rs cc: G.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission