Document Lg1NOZQvaqOJ9LMZQNdVB2M2b

FILE NAME: Special Asbestos (SA) DATE: 1978 Aug 22 DOC#: SAG10 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: Letter to Special Materials Inc from ABC with Program Transcript ADC News 7W est66Street NewYork, NewYork 10023 Telephone 212 LT1-7777 August 22, 1978 M r . R . C ..Wareham President Special Materials, Inc. 3628 West Pierce Street Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53215 Dear Mr. Wareham: Your letter to Mr. James Duffy has been forwarded to me for reply. We regret that you found "Asbestos: The Way to Dusty Death" unsatisfactory. The relationship between smoking, asbestos and disease applies only to lung cancer, as far as is now known, and there seems to be no relation between asbestos and smoking when it comes to asbestosis or mesothelioma. Since asbestosis is the most frequent result of exposure to asbestos, and mesothelioma is increasing at an incredible rate, it seems to us that the smoking argument isn't really all that valid. As for zeolite, none of the experts we talked to, in or out of the industry, ever mentioned it. As you point out, Dr. Selikoff, who surely must be regarded as one of the reigning experts on asbestos and disease, clearly says that as far as is known, as bestos is the only cause of mesothelioma. Nowhere in the program did we espouse the benefits of socialization or nationalization. That is your own interpretation. As for government controls, they've been in existence for some years now. The question is not whether the controls should exist, but at what levels they should be set. prgWeghope you find other Closeups more to your liking. Sincerely PH: li Pamela Hill Executive Producer Spec_Mat_0067605 '. RADIO TV REPORTS, in c . 91.185 4435 WISCONSIN AVENUE. N.W WASHINGTON. 0 C. 244-3S- PLAINTIFF'S l EXHIBIT | FOrl THE ASBESTOS INFORMATION ASSOCIATION y SBCA5051 1 I , n.iiBii--mm X ______ ________________________________ PROGRAM ABC News Closeup STATION WJ LA-TV ASC Network DATE SUBJECT July It, 1978 10:00 PM CITY Asbestos: The Way to Dusty Death Washington, O.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 the body towards cancer or irreversible lung disease years later. MAN: Sometimes it's so dusty there that it was just like a foggy day. And one time I asked my supervisor, and all he said to me, "Well, we know that it's a little uncomfortabie, but it won't hurt nobody." BERGMAN: Before this century ends, asbestos will kill or cause serious disease in hundreds of thousands of people. MAN: The real effect of the disease is the living death. 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 reIated cancer. MAN: It's the same as putting a gun to your bead 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. WOMAN: My mother died 10 years ago from pIeuromesothe' lioma. And my father died last year of metastatic edena passa- noma (?), a form of cancer. And 1 was stricken last May with plaruonesothelIona, I directly attribute it to asbestos exposure. MAN: CCoughingH OcrlCH5 IN- NEW YORK LOS ANGELES CHICAGO DETROIT * ANO OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES 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 medical profes sion. All failed to warn millions of workers in time. MAN Csingingl: ain't no need of tryin', just short of dyin'. They tell me I canft work at alt, there But livin' like some used-up thing is BERGMAN: In this program we'll look at what happened to the workers and other victims, and who allowed this human dis aster to take place, who led them on the way to a dusty death* * s # BERGMAN: Georgia Tech had some great football teams In the early !5Qs, 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 Bow! game of 1956. Franklin Brooks was voted the most valuable player.. a Summers, he worked In an insulation plant, like 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: mesothelioma, the most deadly of asbesTos cancers. FRANKLIN BROOKS: I'd say it's worsened lately, because I have the most severe pain that I've had and 1 have a real short ness of breath. I'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'll have to use oxygen. 1 can't walk fast or walk up steps. If 1 do, 1 gef 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 Said 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 1 weighed when I became til. !'m down now to about 140. ! wear my turtleneck to hide the loss of my muscles. 3 1 have two children, one youngster 20 and a daughter 16. I'm not sure that they realize how serious 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 it. MRS. BROOKS: I think one day it's going to get better and 'it's going to all disappear. But I guess not. I'm hoping for a miracle. Well, maybe. Because we love him. CIi p of woman saying prayers with Frank Cullen^ BERGMAN; Frank Cullen is too sick to go to church, so the church comes to.him. CCIip of praying! BERGMAN: It's been more than 30 years since Frank Cullen last worked with asbestos. That was during World War II. CC 1ip of pray ing! BERGMAN: Frank Cullen was a boilermaker during the war, serving on destroyers like the U.5.S. Davidson. ~ 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 be walking in ail this garbage, asbestos all over the place,, soot. You name it, it was all there* MAN CsfngingU: i did my part in World War H , got wounded for the nation. Now my lungs are all shot down, there ain't no com pensation. 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 tine. I'm going to go to work on Monday one more time. 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 SELIK0FF: These are Mr. Cullen's X-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 X-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 growin. here on the lining of his chest. And that's unhappy news. That turned out to be a mesothelioma. BERGMAN: Dr. Irving Selikoff of Mew York's Mount Sinai Hosp ita i. 4 DR. SELIKOFFs Our treatment for mesothelioma is not very effective in most cases. BERGMAN: Mesothelioma is caused by what? DR. SELIKOFF: Wei 1, so far the only cause that we know for it i.s asbestos. CULLEN: My strength is all gone; t have no strength anymore. ! can't even take the top off a catsup bottle. All I know Is that M m 60 years of age right now, and my whole life has taken a complete turn. 1 was figuring on retiring at 62. Now -- M m not going to be a bed case, but M m not going to be able to do anything like I used to do. ! used to do a lot of woocworking and stuff like that. I'm restricted now. I don't sleep In a bed; ! sleep in this chair. And l have to elevate this chair. I can'tSay in a flat bed. 1 have to sit up. Otherwise I -- once I lay down, the coughing starts. ' " \ M 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 coms In. Because any kind of a respiratory disease that you get, you have a problem. And the biggest danger is pneumonia. If you ever got pneumonia, forget It. You don't' have a chance in hell to get over it. BERGMAN: About every month, Frank Cullen goes into Mount Sinai for a week of chemotherapy. 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 tight as a golf ball, and 1 get a little pain, but'not anything too -- and then It goes away. You're never completely free of, you know, where you can see you were really feeling good. 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 WorId 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. # * * BERGMAN: In a sense, St a!! began back in World War IS with the frnatic effort to build enough ships to win the war. More than a million men and women worked around the clock in these ship- 5 yards, and the use of asbestos jumped dramatically. Part of what w e 're seeing today, a sharp Increase in asbestos disease, goes back to those days. Asbestos is safe and useful as an insulator and fIameretardant 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 sub-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. AV CHARLE5 EYE- <-20 : The Navy, during the early war years, they built a tremendous armada to rain havoc and hell on the whole world. And we did that. BERGMAN: Charles Eye of the Asbestos Workers Union at the Long Beach Naval Shipyward. AV And today we have workers who are dying a s a 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, numbei-- wise, more than what we did during the war. BERGMAN: The Navy could have avoided today's disaster. ABC News has obtained Navy documents never before made public that tell the behind-the-scenes story. itntS wrap'sa te-.r.yzr'ev>{eww'a rn ed";ofeethe-.-Vdan;gers i o ff ,asbestosyd.us.tV.'r.:Bu.t~;Lt;"tpok- a Imost-"30 years' for the Navy to act ^ Fi na iIyV'`rrr'H.97'47-- th&`Navy sa id' it- would limit the use of asbestos' aboard its,.sh 1ps_? At about the same time, shipyard unions at the Electric Boat Company, in Groton, Connecticut, which makes nuclear submarines, became concerned. They called In Dr. Selikoff's specialists from Mount Sinai Hospital. DR. SELIKOFF; We examined a thousand men who were actu ally in the yard at the time. We didn't expect to find too much, because, in general, when you 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 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 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 X-rays, BERGMAN: The Navy and Electric Bead, did they help you? Did they let you see worker records? DR. SELIKOFF: No. The Electric Boat Company, in any case, didn't seem to think it was wise to show us any records, . BERGMAN: Did they, help you at all? DR. SELIKOFF: Wei 2, no. . . j BERGMAN: Even today, Navy yards aren't as clears, end therefore not as safe for the worker, as they should' 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 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. And at Puget Sound: lack of proper protective clothing, Improper use of respirators, and a weak enforcement program. The conclusion is inescapable. Workers are still being jeopardized, John Cleary of the Meta! 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 vaives 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 Phila delphia yard, the medical procedures were inadequate. You cannot do a proper study for asbestos disease without using specially 7 qualified doctors to read the X-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-related lung changes, a figure far below any other such study. Nor were there any B readers at the Long 8each Shipyard several years ago when Charles Eye became suspicious of the Navy exams being given. A/ *&Y1E: Everyone was told the same thing: "Everth ing '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 X-rays to Dr. Selikoff, which is a crosssample, age-wise, duration of trade, that sort of thing. And }7 of the 22 came back with asbestos-related disease. BERGMAN: Some of those 17 have already died. Charles . Eye's father, also a shipyard worker, has died of asbastosis and cancer. And Eye himself now has a problem. A 'f ErY: 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. I become .very fatigued very rapidly. c But once you get it, it's irreversibIe. It's a con tinuous thing, and ultimately I'll die from it. BERGMAN: Finally, the Navy has started using qualified doctors to interpret the X-rays. in the study just completed at Long Beach, covering 6640 employees, they found that 1061, almost 16? -- that's I out of 6 -- with asbestos-related 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 aboutbad publicity than about the health of its workers. Four years after the asbestos-control program began, only 237 out of 3000 workers have been examined, and only 72 of them have been X-rayed. A .record so bad, the yard's commander wrote other yard commanders urging 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, arranged for a study by Dr. Polakoff, an occupational health speci alist from Berkeley, California. Dr. Polakoff examined 359 shipyard 8 workers, and found that 59$ had lung abnormalities. John Morris was one of them. JOHN MORRIS; Hey, when you're down there, this stuff exposed , you know. It's laying there, it's dormant-iike, 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 kill 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 from here?" St'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 h e '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 cams off two brand-new vessels, the U.S.S. Elliott and the U.S.S. Tarawa. Both ships were built by Litton .industries at this shipyard 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 sub stitute. So the Tarawa and the Elliott join the rest of th fleet, still using asbestos insulation. And the Navy can't seem to control asbestos repairs at sea to cut the down the exposure of its own crev/merto \ Last October, the Navy again prohibited asbestos repairs at sea unless stringent safeguards were met. The directive com plained that some ships were not complying with the original orders, and they were not because they could not. Again, unreleased Navy documents. The Commander of the U.S.S. Enterprise, responding to that directive, said he coul.d not comply because the necessary filters and respirators were not on board. More recently, and more damning, a Navy study of the Atlantic fleet found that 85$ of the ships inspected had no controls at a!! 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 9 you grab the corner to get a marshmallow down on its back? And it's hard to personally 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 all their subordinate agencies, and they're contracting this work out. And all of them deny that any of them have an asbestos prob lem, and that they're doing their best. And as Charlie 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 finally taken a tentative step by advising shipyard workers to see their doctors. It didn't offer to pay for the exams. Before our asbestos epidemic is over, many years from now, those claims will climb into the billions, not only from ship yard workers, but others as well. And we'll look at that next. * * * BERGMAN: The"rivers Ide section of Paterson, New Jersey, a grimy part of an old industrial town, an area full of small fac tories and warehouses. Up on the hill, 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. Ouring World War li, 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 cycte. 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 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 mani fest themselves 30 years later. BERGMAN: The UNARCO workers' families are also being studied. So far, 35? of them, as well, have lung abnormalities. The family connection is a new concern. ). -J 10 A week before this interview, one of Mrs. Barbara Gury's lungs was removed. Her only exposure came.from her father, an insulator in a Massachusetts shipyard. 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 ft accumuiates and dries on clothing, and it forms like a dust-like particle when it's touched. And that was my exposure to asbestos, being hear his -- near my dad when he cane 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. BERGMAN: You had mentioned you used to-run down and meet your father at the bus 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 dissem inate in the -- you could see it flying around Sn the atmosphere. REPORTER: How did you react when the doctor told you? MRS. GURY: 1 was frightened, frightened to death. S knew -- I recalled every day of my mother's illness, recalled my lather's illness, and knew what was i.n store for me. And I was that much more well-read, and ! was frightened to death. I'm a 35-yeai-- old mother of two children, a happily married woman with everything to live for. It sort of puts a damper on everything for m e .. REPORTER: Ed, how did you feel when you first heard it? ED GURY: I cried. 1 -- i wasn't angry, ! don't think. S think 1 was very upset and perplexed. i couldn't believe it. 1 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 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 ! would have pro bably jumped out a window a long time ago. ! have two small children whom I love very, very much. And the other day ! 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 little fresh air and sunshine, and 1 saw this father playing with his five-year-old boy and his six- or seven-year-old daughter, and they were playing baseball, which ! do at home with my two kids. And the girls wasn't as good a hitter as nine, but the -- i just sat there and cried my eyes out, because that is what it's done to my wife. , BERGMAM: Mesothelioma, once very rare, Is becoming almost commonplace. OR. SELIKOFF: From 1930 to i960 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 time. ' BERGMAN: It cost Yale University $250,000 to get rid of its asbestos problem. Evry ceiling in its nine-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 about asbestos, it was per fectly legal until 1973 to apply it inside buildings. During the '50S' and '60s, thousands were built that way. Dr. Robert Sawyer- of Yale's Health Service set the clean up in mot ion. 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 night strike the ceiling a little bit. It would be covered with the asbestos material. The people would blow them clean on 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 personneI-nonitoring devices to find out what the exposures to these individuals were. We were quite surprised to find that the levels found in such situations, ngt 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. tos . Another building in New York. The dust contains asbes An apartment complex in Hew Jersey. Ceilings throughout I 2 were sprayed with asbestos. Some tenants are suing the builder because they consider the asbestos a health hazard. Even after 1973, asbestos could Still be sprayed if you called it decorative. it took EPA five more years to stop that use. School buildings, too. Thousands of them had been built with sprayed-asbestos ceilings. A government inspection In New Jersey of 48 schools showed two-thirds of the ceilings were dam aged, with considerable risk of asbestos contamination. The government now recommends they be removed. . And In this country, what goes up eventua11y comes down.. Most buildings, except the very oldest, contain some asbestos; and demoi tion spreads the dust into the area, an unIntentiona! danger for a product that serves man in many useful ways. Almost everyone who lives In an urban area has some asbestos dust in their !ungse Despite all that was known about asbestos, the EPA only recently lightened 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. I IAIS drum-brake linings contain asbestos, some as high as 73Jj. As they wear down, or when they are replaced, asbestos dust is released. |Three years ago, government scientists recommended that the asbesfos dust be vacuumed out instead of blown. But the Occu pational Safety and Health Administration ignored the recommen dation. A 1976 study found that 25% of the mechanics sampled had lung abnormalities. Nine hundred thousand workers are exposed to brake-lining dust. Nor is there any regulation on labeling brake-lining boxes. Of the five we examined, one had rather detailed precau tions printed on it. Two had caution labels, one on the bottom of the where It was not likely to be seen. And two others had no warnings at all. And the argument of how much asbestos Is too much asbes tos still goes on- The current standard is two fibers per cubic centimeter of air. The government wants that lowered. Industry res ists4 Dr. Paul Kotin, Medical Director and Senior vies Prestodent of Johns-Manv1IIe, the largest asbestos company in the world. DR. PAUL K0T1M: In the case of asbestos, I think that 13 we are creating no asbestos disease: lung cancer, mesothelioma, or GI cancer, as you -- at two fibers per cc or less for a working career. BERGMAN: Then why do the government's top experts want to see 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 is 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 General's committee in 1970. And l guess I'm going to tell you I'm smarter now. BERGMAN: A lot smarter now, but smart enough to prevent a recurrence of the past? Dr. Kotin thinks yes. Most other doc tors disagree. 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 most disturbing is that the dangers have been known for decades, and no one did anything about it. * * * BERGMAN: It's not as if the dangers of asbestos have just been discovered. W e 've known about them for 70 years. {907 :- Asbestos disease Is reported, for the first time/, fn' Gr e a t BnJta.i;n/. 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 didn't -- there wasn't much they could do. They had few rights. They could be fired at will. Unions were either weak or nonexistent. l reports on asb&stoS. 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 ail alone. President Calvin Coolidge said the business of America was business. He didn't say anything 14 about the worker. 1928: The Journal of the American Medical Association reported on a young woman who died of asbestosls. 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. 9 3 0 ; -/XT he. B r i t i s h a re Jn o w s u r e . D r . E . R --"M err iweather?' exari-nec-360-i`ex-fc.i-1 e w o r k e r s and.^rf ourtd a s b e s t o s i s . in 265 o f -them. S h o rt: 1y.. t . h e r e a lt e r ^ .t.h e B r i 11 sh '.-took the- f i r s t : s te p s " to 7 .re d ucer :a s b s.tos-...dus.t-;:;:i h e .-,, w o r k p j.a c a ^ N o ,:pne^ he.re dJ,dan yth j_n g?. By this time,, America was deep into the Depression. Jobs were hard to come by. CClip of song, "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?"'] BERGMAN: Workers competed for what jobs there were. Occupational health got low priority. Nothing was done. 1934: The British medical magazine Lancet reports on S00 cases of asbestosis-and the first cases of lung cancer in "asbestos workers. 6 1935: in this country, Dr. Anthony Lanza, in a study done for the industry, recommends dust-controi measures In asbes tos factories. The industry, he says, seems quite uninformed of the hazard. Little, if anything, is done. There were other things to worry about: natural dis asters, drought creating dust storms. lC Iip 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 ii. Millions of people have been exposed. And still, little is done. 1949: Dr. Ken Smith, Medical Director of the JohnsManvilie Company, studies 708 asbestos workers and finds 534 with iung changes. John McKinney, the President of Johns-ManviI Ie. Did you know Or. Ken Smith when he was your corporate medleal d irector? JOHN MCKINNEY: Yes, I did. 15 BERGMAN: You know he did a study of 708 Johns-ManviI Ie employees and found an asbestos danger way back in 1949? MCKINNEY: Yes. BERGMAN: ` Smith cal ted 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 that, that that was the reason for it. I know that Dr. Smith has testified to that, but I don't know that that's accurate at a II. BERGMAN: Well, lt|s sworn testimony in a federal court. MCKINNEY: Undoubtedly. We think Dr. Smith was mistaken about a lot of things, including his own policies. BERGMAN: By the '50s and '60s, there are scores of re ports on asbestos. But the government turned its back, closed its eyes, and did very little. sician. Dr. William Johnson, a former Pubjic Health Service phy DR. WILLIAM JOHNSON: The U.S. Public Health Service conducted surveys of these plants under assurances of confiden tiality. 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. BERGMAN: What you're saying is that the government, state governments, and companies worked together. DR. JOHNSON: Yes, very much so. BERGMAN: Doesn't that amount to collusion? DR. JOHNSON: fair to say. If you want to cail it that, I think it's Unfortunately, I think there was an attitude of, "Well, let's -- let's treat the 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-related 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 of the past, of research that wasn't done, of inspections that weren't made, of regulations that weren't pro- e ` It 16 duced, of laws that weren't passed, of studies that were never started. And now, unfortunately, w e 're paying that price. Unfor tunately, too, it's the people who worked under those circumstances that are paying the price; w e 're not. It's unhappy to think that these people, like Mr. Cullen, went to work thinking that somebody must be looking at the situa tion to see that it was safe; or they knew about government depart ments, Industrial hygienists and scientists, and so forth. And there was no somebody. MAN CslngingU: I did my part in World War 11* got wounded for the nation. Now my Sungs are all shot down, 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 1 smoke too much, he says that I'm not tryln'. He says he don't know what 1 got, but we both know, he's aiyin'. Ifm 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. !'m going to go to work onMonday onemore time,one more time. . I'm going to go to work onMonday moremore time. The doctor says both lungs are gone, there ain't no way shake it. But 1 can't live without a job, somehow I've got to take it. I'm going to go to work on Monday one more time.I'm goingto goto work on Monday one more time, one more tim'e. i'm going to go to work on Monday one more time. They tell me I can't work at all, there ain't no need of tryin*. But livin' like some use-up thing is just short of dyin*. I'm going to go to work on Monday one , more time. !'m going to go to work on Monday one more time....