Document gan5wogZr4ODqdw7xw7k5oVYe

FILE NAME: WR Grace (WRG) DATE: March 11, 1969 DOC#: WRG 160 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: 1969 Letter from P Kostic to RW Sterrett regarding article in Safety & Engineering. To: R. W. Sterrett From: Peter Kostlc cc: R. M. Vining C. F. Dugan R. A . Kulberg CAM B RIDGE V.11CS Date: March 11, 1969 The following article which appeared in the March issue of Safety Engineering is for your information. -I think it would be well at this time, with the advice of counsel, to consider applying a warning or precautionary label or statement on all containers of products containing vermiculite This may aid our defense in cases of product liability claims The attached extra copies are for distribution as you wish. PK:vag Peter Kostlc Congressman Edward J. Pat- -; ten of New Jersey has introduced! HR 2503, "a.bill to promote the . safety of workers engaged in male-{ Qgbestos products for shipment | in commerce,' and for other p u r-; poses." It is substantially the same as*the Asbestos Safety bill he intro duced September 14, 1967. Last year when hearings were conducted on the proposed occupa tional Health and Safety Act, Or. Irving J. Selikof? of the Mt. Sinai School' of Medicine testified in favor of the bill before the House Select Subcommittee on Labor. He ls'bne df this country's greatest ex- i jierts on as^estosis,; his,'research ` covering `n o t `only'w orm s m as- ' bestos, but members of their-fami lies and personsfiving'near asbestos plants, or facilities unn$9asbe&ds products. % uai Dr. Selikofif told of studies he had made of some 632 members of two New York-New Jersey Asbestos Workers Union locals. According , to medical yardsticks, over a 19year period, 203 should have died. In fact, 255 did die. Of that num ber, 37 could have been expected to die of cancer. In fact, 95 died of cancer. In addition, a disease which was considered so rare it was not sepa rately coded in the International Classification of Causes of Death has been unmistakeably associated with asbestos and the number of cases - has increased significantly. This is mesothelioma--a highly malignant tumor. P L A IN T IF F 'S EXHIBIT m 4T A T f ilOM. w n t co. One disturbing factor in meso thelioma is the rather indirect ex posure a number of its victims had. In some cases studied in London, 31 had worked with asbestos, but nine merely lived in the household of an asbestos workerl Eleven peo ple lived within V4 mile of an as bestos factory! ' Early in 1968, Dr. Maxwell Borow reported in the "Journal of the American Medical Association' on 17 mesothelioma cases in New 1 Jersey. Fifteen were asbestos work- . ers, two lived near a n . asbestos factory. Dr. SelikofFs statement told of other studies in South Africa! There were additional remarks by these doctors regarding the possible ex posure of all construction workers and of the bystander who unknow ingly breathes in the poisonous dust. The call of Congressman Patten against asbestosis has not gone un heeded. Johns-Manville, the U.S. Public Health Service, the Interna tional Association of Heat & Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers, and the Mt. Sinai School of Medi cine have joined together in an ef fort to eliminate or at least mea surably reduce the exposure of some 200,000 asbestos workers. This will certainly result in greater protection to the entire construction industry arid the general public too. 20110905