Document XNzjNn9yneYDZY4m2d0KgK0x

Asbestos Information Association/North America 22 East 40th Street New York, N. Y.` 1C016 212-6S9-3378 January 26, 1973 V Gentlemen: For these of you who may not have already seen it, attached is a copy of the January 21 New York Times Sunday Magazine article on asbestos by Robert Sherrill. As predicted in our memo of January 17, the article is a cornucopia of innuendo, misinformation, and unwarrented suppositions, all designed to portray the asbestos industry in the United States as an irresponsible villain. Also attached is a copy of the AIA/NA letter to The New York Times on the article. The letter has been reviewed and approved by the members of the Executive Committee and has received legal and medical clearance as well. Each member company of the Association should feel free to use the letter as needed to deal with questions raised as a result of the Times article. A-^short covering note which accompanied the letter to the Times is also attached. We shall keep ^lou informed when and if the Times agrees to publish the letter. Sincerely, Matthew M. Swetonic Executive Secretary Enclosure A 08 02 4 PLAINTIFFS I EXHIBIT 1 UC-1635 , THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE < - JANUARY 21, . By Robert Sherrill Shipyard work attracted about 4.5-million Amer icans into its ranks at one time or another during World V/ar II, and an estimated 3.25-million of those people are still alive. If they think about the experience at all these days it is probably to again remind themselves with satisfaction that things could have been worse. Whether they went into the work simply for a paycheck, or as a kind of emancipation (at some shipyards nearly one-third of the workers were women), or as an alternative to the military draft, those who built and repaired America's ships took comfort in supposing that however dirty and boring the work sometimes be came, at least it was safer than being in the front lines. Now it appears they may have been wrong to think so. The fatality statistics are still too scat tered and iffy to yield a solid conclusion, but there are some disquieting hypotheses to be drawn from such cases as that of the New York tire company executive we shall call Charles Armin because his family prefers to keep his real name out of this. Armin had never had a serious illness in his life. He was a 200-pound, robust, hearty fellow who locked much younger than his age, 60. He enjoyed sailing in his spare time and ran a taut ship on the job, too. Then in December, 1971, he began getting sharp pains in his chest, enough to worry about, enough to send him to the doctor. Tests showed his heart was in fine shape, and the lung X-rays showed noth ing wrong. Still, the pains persisted and grew worse, and in April the doctors decided to go in for a look. They found that Mr. Armin was suffering from mesothelioma, a kind of cancer that has only come into the medical fraternity's conversation in recent years. Mesothelioma, which has been so rare that it is not separately categorized in international medical classifications, is cancer of the chest lining or of the abdominal lining. Everyone who gets it is going to die from it within a year be cause it covers the whole lung area from apex to base, or infuses the whole abdomen, and no sur geon can take out so much and leave a survivable patient. It is a painful disease and progressively so. The cavity lining fills with fluid, which must be drawn off periodically; when the disease strikes the chest area the patient slowly suffocates. None of the usual cancer palliatives do much good, and there is no known cure. Mr. Armin's meso thelioma was discovered in April. He was dead 14 weeks later. The thing that makes his case--among a number of others--seem so ominous to some occupational health experts is that they know what caused it, and they know that the same cause has touched the lives of millions of other Americans. The cause was asbestos. Now, asbestos can be credited with saving many lives: fireproof clothing, fireproof insulation in buildings, safer and more durable brake linings, etc. But now asbestos is beginning to reveal its other side, not only in the appearance of the compara tively rare mesothalioma, but, on a much broader scale, as a catalyst of just plain lung cancer, and of asbestosis, a crippling disease which scars the lungs and interferes with the passage of oxygen into the blood. Anyone with an advanced case of asbestosis will probably feel more comfortable climbing the stairs backward, so that he can sit down on each step. He also can be certain that because of the presence of the asbestosis he has as much chance of developing cancer as of escaping it Heavy doses of asbestos in the lungs also encourage the carcinogenic effects of tobacco smoke to a remarkable degree; studies have shown that asbestos workers who smoke have a lung Robert Sherrill U the Washington correspondent of The Nation. ^ C 0 90V cancer rate 800 per cent higher than smokers in the genera! population. Occupationally, probably five million or so Americans--insulation workers, construction work ers, oil-refinery workers, etc.--breathe a significant amount of asbestos dust every day they go to work. The hazard also crops up in distinctly nonoccupational places, ,such as the Northside Elementary School in Lander, Wyo., which recently was closed by the state health department because asbestos which had been sprayed as an insulation on the ceiling was beginning to come loose and mix with the air in dangerous amounts. But wherever en countered, the hazard is especially insidious because it is like a long-term time bomb: For reasons doctors don't fully understand, the diseases related to asbestos do not explode for many years after the patient breathed it in. Mr. Armin, for example, had had nothing to do with asbestos since World War II, when, from 1941 to 1943, he was a tinsmith in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He helped install fiber glass in destroyers' refrigeration holds, and he also secured asbestoscovered pipes with hangers and straps. After 1943, he got a white-collar job away from the shipyard and never again worked with asbestos. His 29-year lag between contact and illness was not surprising; indeed, for asbestos disease, 25 to 30 years is the normal period between exposure and development of symptoms, which is why medical scientists who have specialized in the occurrence of asbestosrelated industrial diseases believe that the first big wave of cancers from World War n shipyard ex posure may be at hand. Among those who think so are Drs. Irving J. Selikoff and E. Cuyler Hammond. Dr. Selikoff of Mount Sinai School of Medicine, City University of New York, is at least among the three or four top authorities on asbestos disease. Dr. Hammond is vice president of the American Cancer Society in charge of epidemiology and statistics, w'ho already has gained a slice of immortality as the fellow most responsible for statistically dem onstrating the relationship between smoking and cancer. To some high officials at the U.S. Depart ment of Labor and to many high officials in the asbestos industry, these two doctors and their colleagues represent a kind of reform plague. Indeed, Selikoff is seen by some leaders of the asbestos industry as a cruel showman. F. J. Solon Jr., vice-president for environmental affairs of Johns-Manville Corp., the nation's largest producer of asbestos, says, "To terrorize people who worked in shipyards 30 years ago, and now can't do a g.d. thing about it--that's something I couldn't square with my conscience." Of the shipyard dangers, Selikoff says this: "We do know that there are a large number of meso theliomas in Great Britain. Probably over 1,600 now, people who worked in British shipyards start ing in 1935. They are five years ahead of us, so Britain casts its mesothelioma shadow over the United States. We know it's a large number, but what the count will actually be we do not know. Nor do we know the percentage of incidence in Britain; they don't have what we call a population base. But any percentage would be a terrible situation. The only data that we do have, that gives percentages, is a new paper just come out by Dr. D. Fletcher in Barrow, England, who followed a group of shipyard workers from 1963 to the present, and he compared those who had X-ray stigmata of asbestos exposure with the general male population in that area. He found a three-times in crease of lung cancer among those who had X-ray evidence of asbestos exposure." (Industry spokesmen note that the British experience may not be wholly compar able to the American, since in British yards asbestos was ap plied with a spray process not used in the U.S.) The thing that is so alarm ing to Selikoff's group is that some risk applies not only to asbestos workers (only onefive-hundredth of the ship yard payroll), but to every body who worked downwind or in the general vicinity of the asbestos jobs. In ship building, this means anybody who has worked within the confines of the ship's struc ture: welders, shipfitters, machinists, pipefitters, elec tricians, carpenters, boiler makers--the whole gang. . "You don't have to work with asbestos for 30 years to develop mesothelioma or some other cancer or asbestosis from it," Selikoff explains. "Absolutely not. Because once you get it in your lungs, it stays there forever, and as the years go by your lung continues to be exposed even though you may be out in the Rockies. The nice air in the Grand Canyon won't protect you because you've already got it in your lungs." In 1951, the lung X-rays of Robert Ken looked normal. He was a little short of breath, and Dr. Selikoff couldn't un derstand why, but he put it down to all that dust Kerr was breathing at the quarry where he worked. X-rays in 1954 showed Kerr developing some lung scarring. It looked like asbestosis, and Selikoff asked Kerr if he had ever worked with asbestos. No, he said, never. He told Selikoff his whole employment history and asbestos work wasn't part of it. By 1958 the X-rays showed scarring in both lungs. Selikoff's suspicions in creased: Was Kerr certain he had never worked with as bestos? Nope. Never. But as he talked to Selikoff, Ken's wife 'interrupted: ``Bob, do luW026- got married? in 1935, you worked in that brake-lining place." "Oh sure," said Ken, "but I only worked there fo. six months as a weaver." "And here's his film on June 7, 1972," says Selikoff. "You can see the white stuff al through the lungs. Bob's re tired now, 50-odd-years old, living in Florida, unable to breathe, can't even do his own lawn. Six months in 1935! Came up from Florida to see me to make sure he had no cancer. He doesn't He just can't breathe." A number of asbestos-com pany officials and asbestos- union officials who rose ' through the ranks have found that they are no safer for having been away many years from the actual handling of asbestos. Raymond Rider en tered the asbestos trade in 1947, but in the nineteen-six- 'ties he became an official with New York Local 12 of the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers, and for 10 years he didn't touch the stuff. But he had breathed enough in his early career. X-rays taken in Jan., 1571, showed he was still in the clear, but by Feb., 1972, they . showed mesothelioma. Since then he has had lung surgery, 24 cobalt treatments and ex tensive chemotherapy. His fa ther, George Rider, also a union officer, died of the same disease. .^ The response of the indus try and especially of the Fed eral bureaucracy has been strangely indifferent. The ran- ' dom breather may not care, '. even though asbestos can x harm him too--if, for exam ple, he inhales asbestos . thrown into the air by the demolition of buildings. But the asbestos worker feels very lonely with his special demon. William G. Bernard, secretary- treasurer of the Asbestos Workers Union and himself a victim of lung-scarring, com- . plains, "You know, we have > damn near as many, or mort.-i. people who work with as-' bestos as there are coal miners in the country. But nobody cares about us, because we don't have any disasters. The . miners have a disaster and' their pictures show up on the front pages with dirty faces, and everybody feels sorry- So they put a black lung bill through Congress. We have a higher pJcantag4 of people dying of respiratory trouble, but nobody gives a damn about it." died of cancer of the stom ach. colon and rectum. Over seven per cent died of as bestosis." Nor are these figures pecul iar to the locals in question. Selikoff goes on to cite more |N Jan. 1, 1943. extensive studies confirming Locals 12 and that similar increased deaths 32 of the Asbestos Work "occur in every single group, ers Union in New York and of asbestos workers that's Newark, N. J. had 632 mem been examined." And he con bers. Dr. Selikoff and his col cludes: `This is simply an leagues have traced the 625 occupational disaster without who matter here (seven died parallel in American history." early, mostly of acciden Such an alarming finding is tal ' causes). Given their just now beginning to pene age, 203 of those men trate the thinking of workers, would normally have been ex which is rather odd, since as pected to die by the end of bestos industry officials and 1962. Instead, 255 had. died the U. S. Public Health Serv --an excess over the normal ice and the U. S. Department death rate of more than 20 of Labor have known for per cent. About seven should years that asbestos could be have died from lung cancer, a serious hazard. For more but 45 died of it. Instead of than 60 years cases of asbes the normal nine or 10 deaths tos disease have been posi from cancer of the stomach, tively diagnosed. colon or rectum, there were Deaths due to asbestosis 29--"not so unexpected." as were clearly defined at least Selikoff points out, for "any as early as the nineteen- body who inhales dust also twenties. The association be- ingests it. Any worker is al ; tween lung cancer and ocways spitting out the stuff . cupational exposure to asbes you think he's only inhaling." tos was proved in a paper And whereas nobody in the published in 1955 by Sir general population dies of Richard Doll, then chief sta- asbestosis--scarred lungs--12 * tistician of the British Medi men in this study group died cal Research Council. In 105 of it during the first 20 years, consecutive autopsies at one and 4 died of mesothelioma. asbestos plant in England, he That left 370 of the group found 18 deaths due to lung still alive on Jan. 1, 1963. Be cancer. And in 1965 an equaltween then and the end of , ly conclusive connection was 1971, 78 of them should have established between asbestos died if they followed the pat and mesothelioma in a paper tern of the general popula published by Selikoff, Ham tion. Instead, 168 died. "And mond and Dr. Jacob Churg why? The same thing," says in The New England Journal Selikoff. "There should have of Medicine. Since then, there been four or five lung-cancer has been an explosion of deaths in this group. There literature on the occupational were 43. There should have hazards of asbestos, encour- been no deaths of mesothe aged by symposia such as the lioma--that doesn't occur in one held recently in Lyons, the general population. There France, by scientists from were 23. There should have around the world. been three deaths of cancer The asbestos industry and of the stomach or rectum. the U. S. Department of La There were 12. And of course bor have not seemed exactly there should have been no overjoyed to receive all this deaths from scarred lungs. new data; indeed, their basic There were 20. ' response has been a combina- "If we total up this one . tion of defensiveness and small group of workers from hostility and furtiveness.'In Jan. 1,- 1943, to Dec. 31, 1971, 1964, when Selikoff was or- almost 20 per cent died of . ganizing an international lung cancer. Out of the 430 symposium, he received a let men who died, one out of ter from the law firm repre every five asbestos workers senting asbestos textile com died of lung cancer. Almost panies, informing him that seven per cent died of meso the industry was aware of thelioma. Almost 10 per cent what he was up to and imply ing that if any derogatory remarks about asbestos that might harm its sales should emanate from the conference, he could expect to see them in court. The U. S. Public Health Service conducted air samplings in a couple of dozen asbestos plants in 1964, but it refused to disclose its findings to Selikoff, or, as he puts it, "apparently the key to the file cabinet was lost." Though workers in shipyards today are subjected to much the same asbestos hazards as in World War II, Navy medi cal officers generally refuse to talk about the problem or to discuss what they are doing, if anything, to protect workers in the yards under their command. Selikoffs crowd has run into this wall since the begin ning. In theearly fifties, hav ing recently won the Ameri can Public Health Associa tion's Albert Lasker Award in Medicine for his part in devel oping a drug crucial to the control of tuberculosis. Dr. Selikoff opened a clinic in Paterson, N. J., to continue his research into pulmonary diseases. Among his first pa tients were 17 men who worked in the Union Asbestos and Rubber Company plant, which started production in Paterson in 1940 and closed in 1954. At that time, all 17 men were strong and work ing, and appeared likely to go on doing so for many years. But within seven years, six were dead, and today, only two survive. Seven died of lung cancers, one of meso thelioma, one of stomach cancer, one of colon cancer, four of asbestosis, and one of "other" ailments. Some thing strange was developing, and Selikoff wanted to broaden the investigation to find out what had happened to all the men who worked in that plant from the time it opened. He needed money. and he ngt-prf the U. S. Public Health Service for a grant. It turned him down. When he Vo<6 'asked the asbestos company: officials to let him look at their personnel records, the/ said they had lost .them. Bu> because the factory's output had been used in war produc:tion, all its employes had had to be cleared by the FJ3.L, so |a list of the workers on the factory's payroll during the war years 1941 to 1945 did exist, and by a process Seli koff.prefers not to discuss, he got bis hands on the names of the 933 workers of that era. "That's all we needed," he recalls. "That and a lot of. work, because we had to trace those 933 men. Surpris ingly, we were able to find 877 by the end of 1971." The effort proved reveal ing. According to Dr. Ham mond's calculations, in a normal population group of that size, considering age and sex factors. 299 would have died by 1971. But in this group, 484 were dead. Nor mally 50 could- have been ex pected to have died of some kind of cancer; in this group, 143 died of cancer. The group's lung cancer rate was nearly 700 per cent higher than the general population's; its stomach and colon cancer rates were twice as high. Seven men had died of mesothelioma.. In those war years, many of the workers had been em ployed for only brief periods at the plane "Of those who worked for one week or less, when X-rayed 30 years later half of them had some scar ring; nine had nothing and 10 had some scarring. Less than one week, and they had ab normal X-rays!" says Selikoff, who never ceases to be amazed by the statistics he and Hammond use. "So the problem is not only how much you work. Of course, the more you work, the worse it is. But even those who had very little exposure, if you live long enough you're going to have problems." tnrow ru net uioic mtc- .ly, SeiV'off w?nt to JohnsManvilie Corporation in Man ville, N. J. He was not wel come. "Somehow," he says, "the company couldn't find itself able to cooperate." Nor could the Federal Govern ment find funds for the re-' search. But Joe Modrone, president of Local tsOO, United Papermakers and Paperworkers, which has jurisdiction at Manville. took Selikoff into the basement of the union's headquarters and scratched around and came up with the seniority list for Jan. 1, 1959. There were about 3,000 names on the list. Of these. 6S9 had worked at the plant for 20 years. Selikoff's men set out to track them down. "Let's see now what hap pened to them--and mind, this is only the beginning of what will happen to them," says Selikoff. "Given their ages, there should have been 134 deaths among the 6S9. There were 199. And again, . why did these people die who were not expected to die? Eight should have died of lung cancer; 27 actually did. And 15 died of mesothelioma." Two or three times as many died of cancer of the colon or cancer of the rectum or of the stomach as normally would be expected. Ten per cent died of asbestosis. "It was becoming monotonous--a hell of a monotony! So not only in the plant at Paterson but now in Manville, too, the same pic ture." But while Selikoff and ' Hammond and their crowd did everything they could to uncover evidence of the dis aster that was occurring in the asbestos industry, indus try and Government remained unmoved. The most impressive case of bureaucracy/industry indiffer ence occurred at the Union Asbestos and Rubber Com pany factory in Tyler, Tex. This is the same outfit that had operated the factory in Paterson, N. J., before closing it in 1954. Union Asbestos later sold out to Pittsburgh Corning Corp. But under any 1 name, the Tyler plant was still a foul place to work. Reputedly, in some areas of the plant the asbestos dust was so thick workers couldn't see across the room. Medical facilities consisted of two first-aid cabinets, one with a broken glass door admitting asbestos waste was cumpeu ; in nearby fields, sometimes to I a depth of three feet, that j children sometimes used as a i playground. Bags in which as bestos had been shipped to the plant and which were still coated with asbestos dust were sold to local nursery men who do a tremendous business in roses. It is futile to guess at the number of nurserymen and customers who breathed an injurious amount of asbestos . dust from the sacks, but the factory workers can be counted. Personnel records microfilmed by the Public Health Service show that be tween 1954 and 1972 at least 895 persons were employed there. They were working un der deadly conditions and the U. S. Department of Labor and the Public Health Serv ice were aware of these con ditions at least as early as 1967. But they kept quiet. Inspectors from the old Bureau of Occupational Safety and Health (BOSH) took air samples in 1967 that showed that the count of asbestos fibers was in some parts of the plant 60 times higher than today's officially declared safe level of five fibers per cubic centimeter. These findings , were withheld from the work ers. In 1968, because the Tyler plant turned out asbestos in sulation under a Navy con tract, it was subjected to an inspection by the Labor De: partment under the WalshHealey Act. The company could have been heavily fined or even dosed because of its health violations; instead, the Labor Department took no ac tion at all. That's the way things stood until 1970, when Congress passed the Occupational Safe ty and Health Act. With that act, BOSH was phased. out and replaced by NIOSH -- the National Institute of Safety and Health. With the change of initials came a change of bureaucrats and attitude, too. Among them were Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner, who became director of the Divi sion of Field Studies and Clinical Investigations,' and Dr. William M. Johnson, a re' cent product of the Harvard School of Public Health, who became Wagoner's assistant. They inherited a medical chaos, a burial ground of old statistical bones hastily covered up by their predecessors. "We even inherited about 2,000 air samples that hadn't been counted." Johnson re calls, "because the previous . inspectors had been out col lecting data without ever coming to grips with what they were doing. They would just keep rescheduling sur' veys, sometimes a second or third time around at a plant without really giving any thought to what it was really showing from a health stand point" .Buried deep in the files he found Tyler, Tex. Why had , Public Health Service and La bor Department officials i. covered it up? "I could say they were stupid, or that it was criminal negligence, or ! bureaucracy, or 1 could say : they were afraid that if they did start getting concerned about this that their right of entry would have been cut off," says. Johnson, "but the fact is, I don't know." All he did know immediately from the records he uncovered was that "the plant had no busi ness operating." But still the higher bureauc racy balked. "We transmitted * bur sampling results to the ; Labor Department," says Johnson, "and also followed up with a comprehensive re port." The report showed that of a sampling of 17 men . who had worked in the plant 10 years, eight had asbestosis. : "The Department of Labor A^s would not 'honor our samples. They, wanted to take their own - for compliance. They - went in--I don't remember the exact date; I believe it was November, 1S7!--and they took some samples and came up with citations. But they didn't mention asbestos in the citations and the citations only added up to $210 in nonserkms violations." So much public ridicule and bad publicity greeted that punishment that Labor felt obliged to reinspect the fac tory and levy a S6.9S0 fine. Two weeks later, claiming the fines were too great a burden to bear. Pittsburgh Comine decided to close the plant. Left behind were many Tyler residents who will eventually die of asbestos disease. Are there other asbestos outfits still humming away in the same condition that filled 'the lungs of Tyler? Some are trying to shape up. At the Johns-Manvilie plant in New Jersey, for example, company officials claim--and union of ficials agree--that in 90 per cent of the factory the asbes tos fiber count is already be low the five-fibers per c.c. max imum set by Federal health standards. The dust is sucked up through hoods over the machines and captured in a central bag house. And at J.M.'s asbestos mill in Asbestos, Que, the bagging of the mineral is done entirely by machines; everything is en closed; human hands don't touch it, and the dust is re portedly carried away in 70.000 separate suction opera tions. Johns-Manvilie is also "considering'' hiring only nonsmokers in some of its opera tions. "This corporation has a conscience SO miles long." says J.-M.'s Vice President Solon. "We've sent out in structions to dean up or close down, but I won't tell you the whole industry takes that attitude." Dr. Johnson, despite the fact that he has only a re stricted view of the industry, says he knows of "about a half-dozen plants" in which the asbestos levels are four to eight times what the Labor Department concedes is the maximum safe leveL But ac tually, nobody knows how widespread the hazard is. Fed eral funding for inspections is at a rock bottom minimum. And unions may be as leth argic as industry or Govern ment when it comes to in forming workers of the risk. Officials of the United Ce ment. Lime and Gypsum workers, which has jurisdic tion at a plant where asbestos dust concentration is said to be over 100 times the-safe level, say they haven't even bothered to get their workers X-rayed yet. though a U. S. Bureau of Mines report ex posed the danger last March. As for the enforcement of health standards established under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Federal offi cials have conceded in testi mony before Congress that if they were going to enforce health standards properly, they would need about one hygienist per 35.000 workers. So far as can be determined, the Labor Department at pres ent has 60 h.vgienists -- or about 1 per 1.2 million work ers--to enforce all health standards, not just those relat ing to asbestos hazards. Since there seems to be no great rush to enforce any as bestos 'health standards, it naruiy mailers wnetner the standards are the proper ones. But the manner in which they were decided may give some further indication of what the laboring man can expect in the way of protection from the Federal agencies and the industry. &08029 At issue was whether to set the standards at a maximum permissible air content of two asbestos fibers (each longer than 5 microns) per cubic centimeter or five asbestos fibers. In either case, that's quite a bit of dust. A cubic centimeter is about the size of a small thimble of air, and a workman will inhale about six to eight million of them in a typical day. So the issue was whether to require the companies to maintain condi tions which would prevent a worker from having to inhale more than 12 million to 16 million fibers of a certain length, or 30 million to 40 mil lion fibers. With a substance that the Labor Department concedes "is causally related to asbestosis and cancers." the multimillion differences were obviously no trivial matter. With what appeared to be an effort to get the best an swer, Labor Secretary James Hodgson early in 1972 ap pointed an outside Advisory Committee on Asbestos Dust made up of scientists and en gineers and labor officials. He also had the assistance of an inside advisory group of med ical men and scientists put together especially for this problem by NIOSH. Also from the outside he hired Arthur D. Little, Inc., a consulting firm, to come up with some advice on the economic feasibility of re quiring industry to get rid of its asbestos dust. Arthur D. Little's panel of experts was made up of 13 executives from the shipbuilding indus try, 12 executives from the asbestos Industry, and a health group of 11 doctors and technicians, all but two or three of whom reputedly have been "consultants" to the asbestos industry at some time in their careers. , The Advisory Committee on Asbestos Dust told Hodgson he should drop the standard to two fibers. NIOSHTs panel agreed that two fibers was none too low. But Arthur D. ' Little concluded that five fibers was perfectly safe and that dropoing the standard to two fibers would cost indus try far too much money. In addition, four days of hear mgs were held at the Labo Department ouices in Wash ington.-with industry contend ing that Selikoff is right up tc a point, but tnai ne goes tot far and interprets his find ings too wildly. Matt Swe tonic. Secretary of the Asbes tos Information Service, ; New York health data distri bution center funded by th= industry, says. "There ha; been considerable controversy with Selikoff not so much err the. effects of asbestos, bu on the best means to contro it and what sort of levels are necessary to control variou. asbestos diseases." Industry people, says Swetonic, be lieve that the perils of the in sulation workers--who ta.c: periodic massive doses of as bestos-laden air--are to often confused with what in dustry contends are the man ageable low-level exposures o the asbestos manufacturing factories. In the end, Hodgson, insist ing that he had arrived at hit decision by an independen appraisal of all evidence, buffed his own advise: group and said that a five fiber standard would be it effect for the next four years (Coincidentally, Johns-Man ville Corporation the same day notified its stockholder, that the ruling would r.o hurt their sales and earnings. Selikoff points out that th: ruling was designed to set : safety level for asbestosis, no for cancer, and that in an; case, qualified scientists sim ply cannot be sure enougt about the nature of asbestorelated disease to say wher< the level should be fixed. lr this light, he arzues. Hods son's ruling was at best ir. cautious. "There's a lot o published evidence that in rw fibers per c.c. mesothelioma ct curs, lung cancer occurs, as bestosis occurs. An ir.dustr.; hygiene practice in our cour try has been that when ther is a serious risk, you build in big safety factor. But wh:  the Labor Department has done is say, `We don't know for sure what level will cer tainly cause cancer and with- out this knowledge there is no requirement for extra cau tion,' instead of saying, `These are the lives of hundreds of thousands of American workers that we are respon sible for and therefore let's set the most prudent level.' '' By continuing the five-fiber standard for another four years--a period that will probably see 100,000 or so new men enter asbestos-re lated industries--Selikoff pre dicts the Labor Department has doomed 20,000 to un necessary lung-cancer deaths, 7.000 to unnecessary meso thelioma deaths, 7,000 to un necessary asbestosis deaths as well as deaths of other can cers. And that's not counting combination effects--asbestos plus'tobacco smoke, asbestos plus the coal-tar pitch work ers like roofers must handle. All in all. Selikoff predicts that ``by a stroke of the pen, 50.000 more lives were thrown down the drain." The A.F.L.-C.LO., agreeing with Selikoff, has sued the Department of Labor in the U. S. Court of Appeals, charg ing that Secretary Hodgson did not consider the evidence or act to protect workers as the law requires him to do, and demanding that he re view the evidence again and set tougher standards. From the opposite direction, how ever, comes pressure to ease up further. The National In sulation Contractors Associa tion has petitioned the Labor Department to give its mem ber companies--who repre Meanwhile, Selikoffs flying wedge continues relentlessly down the field. Not long ago, Selikoff was having some drywall construction work done in his office. He sat there watching the workmen and all of a sudden it occurred to him: *`I said to myself, well, hell, if these guys have been putting up that stuff--watch them spackle it and sand it down so you can't see the joint--they're not immune. I had enough background knowledge to know that the taping compound has asbestos sent a large segment of the in it. So I got in touch with industry that hires asbestos the painter's union, and their workers--a year's deferment from monitoring require tapers came up to see me. To ments. The N.I.C.A. promises make a long story short, that that if the asbestos workers week one of-their men was will cross their fingers and operated on for lung cancer. hold their breath until the end So we cut the lung; the elec of 1973, virtually all of the tron microscope showed it insulating companies by then was loaded with asbestos. will have switched to asbes This is a new trade, began in tos-free materials such as 1946 or so, right after the fiber glass. war--everything became dry- wall--most of the guys in it for only 10, 15, 20 years. We just began a survey at the union's request We've X-rayed our first 17 men, and nine of the 17 have asbestosis. ` These are the old-timers, with 25. years in the trade. Very mild, because these are early cases so far. But we know what's in their lungs." And so another group falls under - Selikoff's cloud. But of course, as in any scientific confrontation, there is always the possibility of miscalculation. Perhaps Seiikoff and Hammond and their colleagues at Mt. Sinai Hospi tal and in the American Can cer Society shouldn't frighten shipyard workers and painters and pipefitters and insulation workers and the rest. Perhaps Assistant Labor Secretary George C. Guenther--who once defended the small fines levied against corporate health violators by saying that "we are not in the fund raising business"--was cor rect to upbraid Selikoff for having chosen, as Guenther judged it, "to overdramatize the matter." It is not, how ever, an argument that evades resolution. Those who have worked around asbestos for any length of time will, soon: er or later, find out who was right A0803C The skin cl ihe salemcncler \ Asbestos, a name that embraces a num ber of fibrous mineral silicates, has been used by man for thousands of years, and for most of that time its qualities have produced contusion and mystery and myth. Id the aggregate it is a rock with ail of a typical rock's rigidity, but broken up it yields fibers that can be spun and woven as easily as flax or cotton. For centuries it was commonly assumed that asbestos was a vegetable rather than a mineral. There was something obviously strange and wonderful about fibers that seemed so gossamer and yet were as strong as steel wire; an ancient explanation of asbes tos' most mysterious power was. that the material came from the skin of the sala mander, a mythical animal that could endure fire without harm--a notion that j was useful to poets even as late as last * century (Southey: "Fly, Salamanders, on Asbestos' wings. To Wanton in my Delia's fiery glance"). Asbestos remained primarily a curiosity ' until the lS70's when -- because of its flexibility, its tensile strength, its invul* nerabilty to heat and acids and alkalies-- It was first commercially mined. In the intervening years it has become a prized ingredient in thousands of industrial products: floor tiles, filters in the manu facture of beer and other foodstuffs, electrical tape, paddings of all sorts, paper binding, paints, etc. Nearly four million tens are mined annually throughout the world; the United States, though it contributes little to the total production, is the world's largest consumer of the mineral. The Bureau of Mines says we used 758,571 tons in 1971. U.S. use of asbestos has grown 1.000-fold in this century, compared to an SO-fold growth for petroleum. Ninety-five per cent of this is chrysotile asbestos from the open-pit mines of Quebec, Canada, probably still the world's most produc tive source, although Russia is beginning to challenge Canada's production lead. Amosite asbestos, most important for shipyard work, comes largely from South African mines. Rudolph Wild, the brilliant engineer whose work a generation ago persuaded the U.S. Navy that amosite asbestos was superior for shipyard insu- lation and should be written into Navy* contract specifications, paid for his in volvement with the magic mineral. He died of mesothelioma.--R. S. j \ .0<6Q> Asbestos Information Association/North America 22 East 40th Street New York, N. Y. 10016 212-689-3378 January 26, 1973 The Editor The New York Times Magazine 229 West 43 Street New York, New York 10036 Dear Sir; Robert Sherrill's lengthy article, "Asbestos, the saver of lives, has a deadly side" (January 21), contains numerous statements of "fact" and interpretation with which we disagree, however, the continued inference throughout the article that the asbestos manufacturing industry in the United States has steadfastly refused through the years, even to the present day, to honor its obligations with regard to the health of its employees is one that we believe deserves comment. I believe it is appropriate to state at the outset that the Asbestos Information Association/North America and its 19 member companies are fully cognizant of the potential serious health effects of excessive asbestos dust inhalation and of our obligations to protect industry workmen from the various asbestos related diseases. It is also important to point out that the asbestos related disease being found today among some long-term industry employees is a result of conditions existing decades ago, at a time when neither the industry nor the medical profession knew very much about the health effects of asbestos and even less about the proper means for their control. It is because this statement of principle contrasts so sharply with the picture of the industry painted by Mr. Sherrill that this letter has been written. To give credit where credit is deserved, there is no doubt that Dr. Selikoff, whose research findings and statements have received enormous publicity over the past half-dozen years, served as a catalyst to precipitate a new and stronger sense of urgency and responsibility in the asbestos industry in the United States than had ever existed before with regard to occupational health. Unlike Mr. Sherrill, however. The Editor The New York Times Magazine Page Two January 26, 1973 Dr. Selikoff has never tried to place the blame for past mistakes and failures on the industry alone. In a 1970 paper describing the results of a joint industry-labor sponsored research project, he stated that "It is too easy to indulge in what might be called the demonological theory of industrial hygiene history." Rejecting the proposition that either industry or organized labor was solely at fault, he continued: "Both conclusions are too convenient and are essentially erroneous. It is much nearer the truth to. say that both industry and labor shared in ignorance and neglect of the problem. Science and medicine are also at fault here for inadequate attention to environmental and occupational health." Mr. Sherrill's evaluation of the situation was not so balanced. Using words such as indifferent, defensive, hostile, uncoopera tive, etc. to describe the industry response to the problem in general and to Dr. Selikoff's findings in particular, Mr. Sherrill selected a number of isolated incidents, mostly from the early 1960s, to document his thesis of a totally irresponsible industry. At no point in the article does Mr. Sherrill make mention of any of the progressive steps taken by the industry to learn more about the health hazards of asbestos and the proper means for their control. For example, in referring to the recent "explosion of literature on the occupational hazards of asbestos," Mr. Sherrill used as an example the October 1972 Lyon conference on asbestoshealth sponsored by the World Health Organization. In the very next sentence, he then states that the asbestos industry has "not seemed exactly overjoyed to receive all this new data." In reality, using the same conference as an example, of the approximately 125 attendees at Lyon, more than three-dozen were representatives of the world asbestos industry seeking not, as Mr. Sherrill would have us believe, to avoid knowledge but seeking in fact, to gain even more knowledge on asbestos and human health. In addition, of the 48 medical and technical papers presented at the conference, nine represented the findings of industry sponsored research, and another five were reports presented by asbestos industry scientists on their own research. In comparison, only six of the papers at the conference were presented by doctors associated with Dr. Selikoff's laboratory at Mount Sinai and one of those was a paper coauthored with an asbestos industry scientist I The Editor The New York Times Magazine Page Three January 26, 1973 In fact, two of the world's largest nongovernmental sources of funds for asbestos-health research are the Institute of Occupational and Environmental Health in Montreal, which is sponsored by the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association, and the Asbestosis Research Council, sponsored by the British asbestos manufacturing industry. The data generated through research sponsored by these two organizations and also by various asbestos companies acting independently has contributed significantly to our knowledge of the biological effects of asbestos. These facts simply do not support Mr. Sherrill's statements about an uncooperative, indifferent industry. Later on in the article, Mr. Sherrill insinuates that the infamous Tyler, Texas plant is indicative of conditions thoughout the industry. Mr. Sherrill is obviously theorizing from a lack of knowledge rather than from valid documentation, for had he accepted our repeated invitations to visit an asbestos manufacturing plant, he would have realized that the situation which existed at Tyler is not indicative of conditions thoughout the rest of the industry. This is not to say that every dust station in every plant in the industry is below the five fiber standard established by the U. S. Labor Department. The industry has always admitted that some difficult engineering problems are still to be overcome, however employees are being protected by other approved means while engineering controls are being instituted. The asbestos manufacturing industry has spent approximately $110 million in the past decade on dust control and expects to spend an additional $95 million over the next few years to achieve complete compliance with the Labor Department standards. In discussing the 1964 New York Academy of Sciences symposium on asbestos, Mr. Sherrill neglects to mention that following the symposium, a group of asbestos textile manufacturers, disturbed at the high rates of disease Dr. Selikoff was finding among his insulation workers, approached the U. S. Public Health Service and requested that the government undertake a complete investigation of the U. S. asbestos textile industry to determine if a serious health problem existed. The industry gave its complete cooperation to the government on this study, which eventually involved nearly 10,000 asbestos industry employees throughout the country. Progress reports on the various findings of this study have been presented at medical meetings for a number of years. Needless to say, your writer made absolutely no mention in his article of the industry's 4S034 The Editor The New York Times Magazine Page Four January 26, 1973 role in initiating this study, nor of the complete cooperation extended to the government by the various companies involved. With regard to the Department of Labor standards on asbestos, Mr. Sherrill attacks the government for its decision to retain the present five fiber per cc standard for another four years before lowering it to the two fibers per cc standard recommended by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Department's own asbestos Advisory Committee. What Mr. Sherrill fails to mention is that both NIOSH and the Advisory Committee recommended that the standard not be lowered for two years (Mr. Sherrill would have us believe they wanted it lowered immediately), and that Labor's decision to delay the adoption of the stricter standard for an additional two years was to grant the industry the time required to develop and install the sophisticated engineering controls necessary to achieve such a tight dust standard. In addition. Dr. Marcus M. Key, Director of NIOSH, is in total disagreement with Dr. Selikoff's prediction that of the 100,000 or so new men that he estimates will enter the asbestos industry in the next four years, approximately half will die of asbestosrelated disease because of Labor's delay in adopting the two fiber standard. Dr. Key assured the Labor Department in a letter sent prior to the publication of the standards that "a new employee could work up to ten years at five fibers per cc before the remaining working exposure of two fibers per cc would approach" a potentially hazardous buildup of asbestos in the body. Dr. Key also admitted that the NIOSH technological "feasibility data were limited" and that if the testimony presented at the hearings and the Arthur D. Little "feasibility study indicate that a two fibers per cc level is not achievable until four years hence, I would accept this as a reasonable health standard." It should also be noted that as late as 1968, the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists' (the only national standard setting body in existence at that time) recommended standard for asbestos exposure was five million particles per cubic foot of air ------ approximately 30 fibers per cc. This standard was lowered by the ACGIH to 12 fibers per cc in 1968 and to five fibers in December 1971 by the Labor Department. Thus, the standard for asbestos exposure has been lowered twice in the last five years, and represents a reduction of approximately 83 per cent of the pre-1968 levels. These facts should help place the two vs. five fiber controversy described by Mr. Sherrill in its proper perspective. Both standards are extremely tight by comparison with past levels, and the industry's support of the five fiber standard does not represent a refusal to honor its obligations to its employees. The Editor The New York Times Magazine Page Five January 26, 1973 In addition, contrary to Dr. Selikoff's statements in the article, the medical evidence for two fibers is neither extensive nor compelling, and is, in fact, heavily outweighed by data showing that five fibers is an acceptable safe level. Thus, the Labor Department's decision to adopt the two fiber standard in 1976 clearly demonstrates, contrary to Mr. Sherrill's evaluation, that when controversies of this nature arise, the question shall be resolved, not according to industry's wishes, but in favor of the greatest protection to employees. Of equally serious concern is your writer's obvious disdain for the Arthur D. Little Incorporated health panel of "11 doctors and technicians, all but two or three of whom reputedly have been 'consultants' to the asbestos industry at some time in their careers." One does not have to be particularly acute to insert the intended "paid medical lackey" or some such phrase in place of the word "consultant." In reality, of the 11, three were government doctors (two from NIOSH and one from the Department of the Navy); one was the medical director of the nation's largest asbestos manufacturer; two would have to be considered consultants to organized labor; only one is an actual consultant to industry; and the remaining four have done extensive research in the asbestos-health area. The only way Mr. Sherrill's statement makes sense is to assume that since at least five of the doctors on the list have conducted research sponsored by the industry, this makes them "consultants" in Mr. Sherrill's mind and as such their findings and opinions automatically become untrustworthy. This is a rather curious attitude in light of the fact that Dr. Selikoff (a member of the panel), whose research work is the central focus of the article, was himself the recipient of substantial research funds from the Johns-Manville Corporation, one of the companies singled out in the article as being uncooperative. While there are many other unwarranted statements and attitudes expressed in the article that deserve comment, it should now be quite clear, on the basis of the evidence presented in this letter, that the asbestos manufacturing industry in this country is not the indifferent, hostile villain that Mr. Sherrill portrayed in his article. Since much of this information was sent to Mr. Sherrill or relayed to him over the phone, one must assume that his failure to include any of this material in his article was no accident, and that it was ignored because it would have contradicted the horrendous picture of the industry that he wished to project. A08Q3q The Editor The New York' Times Magazine Page Six January 26, 1973 In this same vein, it should be noted that while the Department of Labor was severely attacked in the article, no opportunity was given to Labor to defend or explain its actions. It is also significant that while Mr. Sherrill admits that Dr. Selikoff is only one of "the three or four top authorities on asbestos disease," there is no mention whatever of who the other top authorities might be, or what their views are on the various aspects of the problem. This omission is important because many of the world's ranking asbestos-health experts believe that many of the extrapolations and predictions made by Dr. Selikoff are not justified by the published medical data. In conclusion, I hope that this rather lengthy letter has demonstrated quite clearly to you the incomplete, erroneous, sensationalized and distorted manner in which Mr. Sherrill presented the asbestos-helath situation in his article. Very truly yours. Matthew M. Swetonic Executive Secretary Asbestos Information Association/North America 22 East 40th Street New York, N. Y. 10016 212-689-3378 January 26, 1973 Mr. Lewis Bergman The Editor The New York Times Magazine 229 West 43 Street New York, Mew York 10036 Dear Mr. Bergman: In a New York Times Sunday Magazine article entitled "Asbestos, the saver of lives, has a deadly side" (January 21), your writer, Robert Sherrill, unjustly and harshly attacked the United States asbestos industry for its alleged total irresponsibility regarding the health hazards faced by its employees from the inhalation of asbestos dust. Mr. Sherrill created this horrendous and erroneous portrait by the simple procedure of purposefully ignoring and refusing to include in his article any evidence to the contrary, even though data on medical research sponsored by the industry, money spent on dust control equipment over the years and other relevant information was sent him by the industry, and which he claims to have read thoroughly. Although Mr. Sherrill did make a token approach to the industry for its comments, he refused either to meet with industry representatives or to visit an asbestos plant, claiming that he did not have enough time to do so. A lack of time can never serve as a legitimate excuse for a journalist': failure to properly research and document an article. In printing Mr. Sherrill's one-sided and irresponsible article, The New York Times assumes responsibility for its contents, and therefore has a strong moral as well as journalistic obligation to print the attached letter of clarification. While we appreciate that its length is somewhat unusual, in comparison with the 20 or so columns allotted to Mr. Sherrill, our letter, if anything, is not long enough. We await your response. Very truly yours, Matthew M. Swetonic Executive Secretary Enclosure i ne uevv 1 U! fv I lilltli IV I CUI Udl J i--', J.S/ o 'Ths hczz'srds f safety To the Editor: Robert Sherrill's one-sided P.nd sensationalized article, "Asbestos, the saver of lives, lias a deadly side" (Jan. 21), contained many errors of fact and interpretation. The fol lowing sticuid help clarify a few of his more blatant omis sions and distortions. (1) Because of the long latent period of asbestos-re- lated disease, the disease being found today is not an indication of present condi tions but is instead a result of conditions existing decades ago, at e time when neither the medical profession, gov ernment nor the industry knew very much about the health effects of asbestos and even less about the proper means for their control. _ (2) The isolated incidents cited as proof of industry in difference and ^responsibility fire not indicative of the over* ail industry response to this problem. In the past decade alone, the asbestos manufac turing industry has spent ap proximately SI 10-million on dust control and expects to spend an additional 535-mil lion over the next few years to achieve complete compli ance with the final Depart ment of Labor standards. (3) No mention was made whatever of the highly re spected and extensive medical researen which has been spon sored, co-sponsored or co operated in by the industry through the years, and which has contributed significantly to our knowledge of the bio logical effects of asbestos. In fact, the Institute of Occupa tional and Environmental Health, sponsored by the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association, is one of the world s largest nongovern mental sources of funds for asbestos-health research. (4) While Dr. Irving J. Seli- koff has certainly made a valuable contribution to our knowledge of asbestos-related disease, it is unfortunate that Mr. Sherrill did not discuss the s.tuaiion v/im any of the ether top authorities in the '<e!d since many of them do not beiieve that many of Dr. LeiiVoff'a recent frightening predictions are justified by he printed medical data. () The Labor Department decision to delay adoption of the two-fiber standard for an additional two years beyond the two-year implementation period recommended by the National Institute of Safety and Health and the Advisory Committee was approved by Dr. Marcus M. Key, Director of NIOSH, prior to the pub lication of the standards. Furthermore, Dr. Key is in total disagreement with Dr. Selikoff's prediction that half of all those entering the asbestos industry within the next four years will die be cause of the delay in going to two fibers. We beiieve that the above facts demonstrate quite clear ly the incomplete and dis torted manner in which Mr. Sherrill presented the asbes tos-health situation in his article. Matthew M. Swetonic, Executive Secretary, Asbestos Information Association New York Mr. Sherrill replies: Even it one is kind enough to accept Mr. Swotonic's fig ures regarding the amount spent on dust control, the SI 10-million comes to less than 2 per cent of the value of asbestos products sold in the United States during the past 10 years, according to the U. S. Bureau of Census. Considering the health dis aster that the dust has created, I don't call a 2 per cent outlay exactly over whelming. But before taking Mr. Swetonic's complaints too serious ly, one should bear in mind that the Asbestos Information Association is funded by 19 of the nation's largest miners, manufacturers and importers of asbestos and asbestos-con taining products, and the as sociation pays Mr. Swetonic to respond almost by rote. For example, after a recent Wall Street Journal article on the hazards of asbestos, he complained, saying it was "incomplete, erroneous, sen sationalized and distorted." Mr. Swctonic's defense ar senal is limited to a few stand ard blunderbusses. But when he is not rattling off this non-speak as an in dustry flack, he can be quite sensible about the problem. In my taped interview with him, I asked, "In general, how does the industry feel about Dr. Selikoff's conclusions relating to the hazards of as bestos?" Did he reply that Selikoff was all wet? No. That Selikoffs mortality figures were cockeyed? No. Mr. Swe tonic replied, "The health ex perience of these people [as bestos workersj has, you know, been a terrible thing and is obviously, you know, quite bad, and I think that when this information first started to come out of Dr. Selikoff's laboratory it was quite shocking to industry, obviously so." I further asked Mr. Swe tonic if he thought the prob lem was limited to asbestos workers. "No," he said, "I don't think I would go that far. There have been fairly substantial increases of asbes tos-related diseases among manufacturing workers, espe cially textile workers [whose work] has been notoriously dusty. ..." As for the complaint that I do not quote enough doctors who are sympathetic with the asbestos industry, well, let's turn to one of Johns-Manvilie Corp.'s top health consultants. Dr. George W. Wright, for further evidence of the indus try's slowness in meeting the problem. In the American Re view of Respiratory Disease, October, 1969, Dr. Wright ac knowledged that although as early as 1930 scientists "demonstrated that asbestos CD posed a major threat to the CO health of workers in the as bestos textile trade" and al O though subsequent research CO linked the hazard to other O workers, "substantial mim- , <1 bers of persons exposed to asbestos in their occupation have never come under a pro tective occupational hygiene program." This is still true, and it is the fault not only of the as bestos industry but, as I made clear in my article, also the fault of a lethargic, stupid element of organized labor and most especially of a* spineless Federal bureaucracy.