Document rBnE38qz52114bzgjR4z6ODzV

PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT ANNALS OF INDUSTRY Casualties Of The Workplace By , Paul Brodfeur Part II "The New Yorker" - November 5, 1973 Reprinted by permission;1973 The New Yorker Magazine, Inc. DAViO JOE SMITH. M.O. ASSli'ANT MCOICAL DIRECTOR -i UH'TED-STATes STEEU CORPORATION ~ COO ORANT STREET^ PITTSBURGH. PA. IBXJO ~ II--THAT DUfT HAT ATE US Uf N' the dimmer of 1971, a young Hoc* bestra disease, Secretaty Hodgson, ap There has since been considerable I tor named William M. Jahhaun, parently searching for some middle: speculation fat government -circles, who'had just joined the Division of ground that he hoped would satisfy among trade unions, and ui'tliin the in Field Studies and Clinical Investigbao-th industry and labor, declared a dependent medical and scientific com. tarn* of the Department of Health, temporary' emergency standard of five munity shout the'lenient attitude adopt Education, and Welfare's National In fibres per cubic centimetre m December ed hy the Occupational Safet)- and stitute frr Occupational Safety and of 1971. Another indication that the Health Administration toward Pitts Health, disciivered data m the fifes of government was seeking a compmmise burgh Corning after the November his predecessors .which showed that between the well-being of workers and survey. Apologists for the Administra grossly excessive and dangerous as- the interests of industry came when the tion claim that hccaitsc the Secretary hestos-dost levels had existed for years Department nf Labor's Occupational of l^ihor announced tlte emergency in an amodtc-asbcsna-insulatinn plant Safety and Health Administration, standard for asbestos after the survey in Tyler, Texas, owned by the Pitts which has the responsibility fur enforc was conducted harsher penaliies might burgh Coming Corporation. Realizing ing the provisions of the' Occupational haveheen. interpreted as unfair harass that men working at the plant were in ' Safety and Health Act of 19-7(1, in ment nf the company. Some people say .danger of developing asbestos---scar spected the Tyler plant late in No that, with the Administration in the ring of the lungs resulting from the in vember nf 1971, as a result of-Dr. process of redefining safety and health halation of asbestos fibres--as well as Johnson's report that a critical occupa standards for workers, the regional in lung cancer, -mesothelioma, and other tional-health situation existed there. spectors m Dallas had received no clear malignant asbestos-induced tumors. Dr. Although major deficiencies in the guidelines from Washington - about Johnson and the newly appointed di factory's ventilatinn system constituted over-all policy and, fearful of exceeding rector of his division. Dr. Joseph K. serious violations of the Act--those their authority, were simply trying to Wagoner, took the unprecedented step likely to result in disability ur death-- muddle through an administrative vac of sending the information to Anthony the Administration chose to consider uum; Other observers feel that the Mazzocchi, the director of the Legis them as nnnserious, and fined Pitts Administration was reluctant to invoke lative Department of the Oil, Chenri- burgh Corning just two hundred and the letter of the Law in the case of the cat, and Atomic Workers International ten dollars. Occupational Safety and Health Act, Union, which represented the sixty- three workers at the factor)-. At Maz- zoccliPs request, Dr. Jolmsiin and sev eral of his associates from the division conducted a survey of the Tyler plant in October of 19/1 which showed that dust levels there wore far in excess of the federal standard (twelve asbestos fibres per cuhic centimetre of air); that asliestosis was already afflicting seven of the workers there; and that since 1954, when tlie factory opened, a total of eight hundred and. ninety-five men had been emptnyrd tliere in conditions that piM'il grave danger to their licaltli. In the meantime, Mazzocchi and other trade-union leaders, supported hj- Dr. Irving J. Selikntf, who is the director of the Mount Sinai Sellout of Medicine's Environmental Sciences Laboratory and a pioneer in the field of modern as bestos epidemiology, had been urging Secretaiy of I-ihor James I). IfiKlgson to declare an emergency standard for >cCtipntioiial exposure to asbestos of two fibres |K-r cubic centimetre of air. How ever, in s|)ite of the fact that Dr. Selikoff anil Dr. E. Cuvier Haniinond, who i> vice-president for cpidctniologv and statistics of the American Cancer Society, lia<i provided incontrovertible evitlence that one out of five nsbestiis- insul.ition workers was dying of lung cancer, anil tluit almost half of these men were dvinz of some form of as- JtechttM.- tV -lave done si wwkl have .Jpened a Pandora's l f health viola tions in other industries, which the Ad ministration was ill-cquip|ied tii handle, (jnev it had only forty industrial hygi enists to enforce standards in some four i hi workplaces. And still ndwn, in- Mazzocchi, believe that the Administration's people were highly emharrassed bj- the National Institute f Occupational Safety and Health re port on the Tyler plant, which pointed up the Department of Labor's failure tn enforce the" standards of the WalshHcaley Act at the factor)- after a department inspection on Februaiy 13, 1969. Indeed, Mazzncchi believed that the Administration's people were hop ing tliat if they slapped Pittshurgh Coming Kghtly on the wrist with some imueiMus violati<ms the whole affair would Mow over. Whether the truth lies in any one of these theories or, as seems more Kkely, in a combination of them, it became ap parent m December of 1971 that the Tyler affair was not going to blow over. That it did raw, as so many other occupational-health scandals had, was largely the result of the efforts of Maz zocchi, who was determined to make it a emutr crlrbrc. For several years, he and his associates in the union's Legis1- ' 'v Department, aided by Dr. Glenn i .son, a young scientist working under Professor Rene Dubos, at thc Rockcfeller University, had been hold ing conferences for factor)- workers around the country to. point out tltc Itazards existing in tlic industrial en vironment and to give the workers guidance In how to deal with them. It was a considerable undertaking, for the hundred and eight)* thousand members of the union were being exposed to thousands of potentially toxic sub stances. Indeed, in certain factories men were working with more than fivethousand different chemicals, yet fed eral standards existed for fewer than four hundred ami fifty of them. Since Mazzocchi found that tile lack of gov ernment standards'was accompanied by L-tx government enforcement of exist ing health regulations anti an attitude of almost total callousness on the part of industry, he hecame convinced that industrial workers were victims of a conspiracy designed to suppress knowl edge of occupational health hazards and t- 'elav tlie passage and enforcement vvs to cope with them. A bluntspoken man in his middle forties,ewith a fiery temperament, pie-mug eyes, and an iinrulc mane of black hair, lie had begun m brood over what lie con sidered the gn>\ iinmoralitv that at- 1 tended' the plight of rawn who were Mazzncchi zeroed in on Ttler-as the either dying hr being okahied early in V" quintessential example of the ignorance, h'feas a result of exposure to suhctances V neglect, and suhterfuge that' oharac- such as asbestos, whose adverse health ' terized government policy toward in effects had kmg been known to and dustrial hygiene. The complete and ignored by a medical-industrial com final report of the survey made by the plex consisting of company doctors, in National Institute for Occupational dustry consultants, and Ice)- occupation Safety and Health (known as NIOSH ) al-health officials at various levels of the had been sent out on Decemlx-r 21st, state and federal govcnunentmConsc- and he was thus able to document his quently, when the situation at Tyler charges with devastating effect. ,Maz- was brought to ius attention by Dr. zocchi was hoping that his disclosures Johnson in September of 1971, Maz- about conditions at the Tyler plant zocchi saw k as, in his words, "the epit would he picked up by newsmen cov ome,of what WaS wrong with the wav' ering" the meeting and relayed to the - our country was dealing with the prob lem ot industrial 'disease?1 However. he decided against making any public nation. As things worked out, how- ' ever, press coverage of the symposium ! tended to emphasize the more genera] disclosure of conditions at- the Tyler aspects of occupational health that had plant until the National Institute for been discussed by Nader. Occupational Safety and Health sur vey had been conducted and written up. "I wanted to marshal all the facts and then choose the forum that would en . In the meantime, notwithstanding the mildness of the penalties that ac companied them, the Administration : citations had caused considerable enn- able-me to use the example of the Tyler ; Mentation to the management of Pitts plant to best effect, and to bring help to the unfortunate men who were work ing there," he has said. "I wanted the whole country to know in detail what had happened at tint factory, and to understand that what had gone on there--the fruitless Bureau for Occu pational Safety and'Health inspections, the lack of enforcement by the De partment of Labor, the company's dis regard for the men, the whole king, hurgh Corning hy setting March 31, 1972, as the date for completing ex- tensive improvements in the ventila tion- and dust-control systems of the Tyler plant. Combined with the failure of a company plan to use mineral wool as a substitute for asbestos in the manu facture of high-temperature pipe insula tion, and the union's insistence that there be strict compliance with the recommendations of the XIOSH report, lousy history of neglect, deceit, and the deadline meant that the company stupidity--was happening in dozens of 'would at king last be forced to clean other ways, .in hundreds of other fac tories, to thousands of other men across the land. I wanted people tn know that up the plant or close it. Faced with this choice, Pittshurgh Coming's board of directors met ih the middle of Decem thousands upon thousands of their fel ber and decided to shut the factory low-citizens were being assaulted daily, within a few months--after using up and that the police--in this case, the as much raw-asbestos stock as possi federal government--had done nothing ble--sri order to avoid further penalties. to remedy the situation. In short, I The decision to close the Tyler plant wanted them to know that murder was rather than to spend the necessary tim< being committed in .the workplace, and and money to make it safe obvious!) that no one was bothering about it." appealed to the managers of the com* The forum Mazzocchi chose" was pany as the best way out of their diffi the annual meeting of the American culties. However, it did not solve the Association for the Advancement of problem faced by Dr. Lee H. Grant, Science, which was held at tlic Shera the medical director of one of Pitts ton Hotel in Philadelphia tin December hurgh Coming's parent corporation*, 26th, and was attended hy some fifty ' PPG Industries, and medical consult thousand scientists from all over the ant to Pittshurgh Corning. Dr. Gram country. Aliing with Ralph Nader and appears to have felt that his profes Dr. Sidney Wolfe, tile director of sional reputation had been called into Nader's Health Research Group, Maz- question by the findings id the XIOSH zocclii addressed eleven hundred of survey. On December 1.5th- -five the delegates at a symposium entitled months to the day after he had told "Workers and tlie Environment," Dr. Johnson .that the health sit nation at which was moderated by Professor Tyler wasn't serious--Dr. Gram visit George Wahl, the Nobel Prize-win- ed Dr. Johnson at the Division of Field - - fling^ biologist from Harvard. Nader N>i- Wolfe spoke about '*StTU|n-' Studies and Clinical InvcstigaTinhs to disiftl^Fthe medicabwndhion of ihe s-v- -~ tkmal-heahli problems in general, and en Tyler workers who showed signs | >YO '3ii<i syipptoms of ahcst<>rif nd, ' '4-'arrangementwith' Pittsburgh i * fiiuntl a/'gh#s Kfcrnumber, of(c\ee dentin- Dr. Grant p*it It, "to avoid further Y * Colining, Steven \Vodka, of ;the Oil, yN.i- ' resujting from asbestosis/flting cancer, misunderstanding" between XIOSH and Chemical, and Atomic Workers' Legis and mesothelioma amnngtln- Paterson Pittsburgh Corning. According to Dr. lative Department, arrived in Tyler on workersj and since the two plants lull [Johnson, the meeting was somewhat the afternoon of that day to tour the been operated in a simflar ntanner, tin strained, for Dr. Grant was attempting plant and to meet with members of the doctors' findings obviously Itad fright ' minimize the asbestos proldem at the local union committee. Wodka was ac ,cr factor)'. "He tried to imply that companied on hb tour by Herman our.medical findings on the seven men Yandle, the chairman of the local com were based more on epidemiological mitter; by Farkos; and hy Charles K. dam titan on clinical examination," Dr. Van Home, the plant manager; Ik- Johnson recalls. "I replied that rales, found conditions in the factory to he finger dubbing, dvspnca, and reduced much as the)' had been described in the pulmonary function were wcll-recng- XIOSH report. Huge piles of loose as nixed ' clinical -evidence - of ashestosis. bestos fibre lay on the floor of the plant, Furthermore, 1 told him that hack in - and Ytsibk.clouds of. dust were erupting October Dr. Richard M. Spiegel, of from several operations. After the tour, uur division, was given to understand Wi>dka--who had learned only the that some of the X-rays taken hy Dr. previous day that men frofij the Occu George A. Hurst--the superintendent pational Safety and Health Administra :of the East Texas Chest Hospital, in tion had inspected the plant in Novem Tyler-^showed evidence of pulmonary ber--asked to see the citations they had fibrosis. I also reminded Dr. Grant that issued, planting out that the company in 19/0 a manager of the'plant had was required to post them publicly for died of mesothelioma. Dr. Grant then the information of the workers. When informed me that the company was Van Home and-Farkos-pmduccd tltcm, willing to release l>r. Hurst's X-ravs they professed to be ignorant of this re to us--the)- had been made at Dr. quirement, although each citation sheet Grant's request--hut only on the con states that "a copy of the enclosed cita dition that wc come hack to Tyk-r early tion^) shall be prominently posted in a in January, so that we could sit down conspicuous place at or near each place and review them together. I got the a violation referred to in' the citation distinct impression that he was trying occurred." They also assured Wodka to make it appear that XiOSH and that the items marked for immediate r burgh Corning had been working compliance had been taken care of. j<_,dy on the problem from the very Then they told him that Pittsburgh beginning. However, we wanted to . Coming planned no extensive changes get our hands on those X-rays, so I agreed to the meeting, even though t saw little reason for it." in the ventilation- and dust-control systems hy the March 31st deadline, and that the factor)* wimld he shut down sometime in the middle of Feb ON January 5, 1972, Dr. Spiegel and Ridiard A. Lemcn, an epi demiologist whit had also been a mem ber of the original XIOSH survey team, ruary. At the same time, they rejected a request by Wodka that in the meanrime the company provide in-plant fa cilities for storing respirators and for ening tmplicatkms for tlu- men who were employed at Tyler. "It was a sombre moment, for it was the first time that they had been told how seri ous their situation was, and how pre carious k would remain in the future," Wodka recalls. "However, they ac cepted the news stoically. The)- even seemed relieved to know the facts. You see, they had been living in doubt ever since the XIOSH survey, and still hadn't been informed that any of tltcm had been diagnosed as having ashestosis." The next morning, a final meeting was held at the East Texas Chest Hos pital. In addition to Dr. Grant and Dr, Hurst, those present were Farkos and Van Home, of Pittsburgh Corning; Dr. Spiegel and Mr. Lemcn, of XIOSH; and Wodka and Yandle, of the union. Dr. Grant began by saying that when he first visited the Tyler plant, in 1965, he. had realized that a potential health problem existed there, and had done everything in his power to have the situation corrected. He took credit for instituting a number of surveys and studies of the plant's ventilation equi[>~ roent, and blamed the ..jreau of Oc cupational Safety and Health and Dr. Lewis J. Cralley; who had been in charge of field studies and epidemiology for the bureau, for not following through on a proposed medical study of rite workers. Dr. Grant also insisted at the meeting that asbcsttis-dust levels at the Tyler plant were always within the k-galh' specified limits, and lie claimed returned to Tyler, and the following morning they met with Dr. Grant, Dr. Hum, and William Farkos, Pittsburgh Coming's director of jicrsonricl and in dustrial relations, in a conference room changing work clothes, so that the em ployees would not continue to con taminate. their cars and homes with as bestos dust and thus expose members of their families to the risk of incurring that respiratory protection was made mandator)' for all workers in the fac tory as carl)' as May of 1969--a con tention that was disputed on the spot hy Yandler-whn had worked in the at tin- East Texas Chest Hospital. The asbestos diseases. plant for more than ten years, and who fivc men reviewed ilte medical reports That evening, Witdka held & meet declared that, with a few exceptions, on all f tlte employers--results of X-rays and pulmonar)'-functi<m tests done hy Dr. Hurst, and results of ex aminations for tales, finger rliihhtng, ing with several members f the local unioli committee to discuss the health situation at the plant. At tin. outset, In in formed them of the results of a mor the wearing of respirators was not reqtrired until the summer of 1971. Tor his part. Dr. Spiegel listened to l)r. Grant's assessment of the history of the and dyspnea done by the Xtosil team-- tality study Dr. Selikofi" and Dr. Ham plant in sDcncc. "I was not there to ar anti concluded that seven of the em mond had made of nn-n who had gue with him about what had or had ployees had ashestoMs. Then Dr. Hurst announced that his sti]H-riors at the Texas Stale Health Department Would worked at nn amnsite-ashestos-m-ulalion plant owned ht the Union ,\-hostos & Ruhln-r Cnmpam, in Pater not liappcned, or why," he recalls. "J was there to reiterate XlOSIlV medical conclusions about the workers we had nc lease- tin- chest films to XIOSH. Hu. <)r. Grant said that the release wmild be acceptable to Pittsburgh Corning, and it was decided that lie ami Dr. Spiegel would llv to Austin to try to g.-t )x-rtnission from tile 'Texas State ffenltli Coinmi-stiuier. son, New Jersey, between 1941 and 1954. (.When the rnmpam closed tinPaterson plant in 1954, it tram-l'crn d its ujwstiis operations there to the T\ ler facK^jxAvliich.' Was later purchasSf* h)"j Pittsburgh Corning.) As it happened. Dr. Selikofi" and Dr. I lanimond had examined during our survey, and to bring hack the X-rays taken hi Dr. Hurst in August. In my opinion, how ever, Dr. Grant'was' try ing ti~ilsolve himself anil theiHktshurgh Corn ing Corporation--of all responsibility for the conditions that hail Vxi-tcd in ' fur the bulk f attention pakl to the | health sf -the 'worker*./Hi*.-speech sounded like.'a-legal brief more than anything else. As I sat listening, I kept wondering why on earth he had riot \ kept calling Dr. Crallcy to insist that bureau undertake its proposed dical studies, or, failing that, why he didn't get hack to Dr. Hunt sooner than he did. Surelv, in all the years since 1965 he could have found tow#our to examine the workers." After Dr. Grant's opening sum mary, he and Dr.'Spiegel formally an nounced their joint conclusion that at least seven nf the eighteen workers with more than ten years of employ ment in the Tyler plant had symptoms and signs consistent with asbestosis. Dr. Grant and Farktw then said that Pitts burgh Corning would pay for the treatment-jof any disease that was occupa tionally related, provided that the treat ment was performed at the-East Texas Cbm Hospital, hut they were vague about whether the company would pay for any long-term medical followup of the sixty-three workers then employed at the plant. (In his December meet ing with Dr. Johnson, Dr. Grant had suggested that such a program should be undertaken and financed by KIOSH.) There was also no discussion whatever ot any medical followup of the eight tired and thirty-twrt men w1k> had previously been employed at the Tyler plant, and who would carry the asbes tos they had inhaled in their lungs for the rest of their days, presumably because no one could be held legally responsible for what might happen to them. After the meeting. Dr. Spiegel and -.Dr. Grant flew to Austin to obtain per mission for the release of the X-rays. The chest films had been an item of dispute between KIOSH and Pittsburgh Coming from the beginning; now the Texas State Department 'of Health people were apparently concerned about being in the middle of snch a dispute, and they may. well have begun to en tertain second thoughts about the pro priety of Dr. Hurst's having accepted a contract fntm Pittsburgh Corning to examine workers* for occupational Al ness at one of the department's ltospitals, when the department itself had never seen fit to conduct a health in- "ection of the Tyler plant during th 't's entire seventeen years nf existBy that time, practically every"> had been involved in the Ty- jitfe-W scented to he trying to cover **i*'"!*!*S^ Spiegel and Dr. Grant to Austin, Wodka and -MOSII epidemiologist. pfarticcs'of dumping7asbestos waste in v sealed -containers fir lah oratory i-anal- thc'vicinhy of the plant and of selling - yris; then,' bidding Yandle goixlhve, burlap bags contaminated with asbestos . they drove back to Dallas and flew dust to local nurserymen. (Both prac- home. MeanwhAe, Dr. Grant and Dr. tiers had been mentioned in the NIOSIt Spiegel had met with tlie State Health report, which informed Pittsburgh Commissioner, who gave permission for Coming and the Texas State Depart- the X-rays of the Tyler workers to be ment of Health that they presented mailed to KIOSH headquarters in Cin- a serious health hazard, and recom emnaa. mended that all asbestos waste and used burlap hags he buried.) That after AT the beginning of 1972, the Ty- noon, Wodka, Lcmcn, and Yandle t* ler affair was like one of those dr6ve out to a groupofdumps inan-in- rimfoeriftg' quarrels between small na- hahited area near a sewage-treatment tions that threaten to disrupt the hal- plant, about a mile north of the factory, ance of power in a sensitive geopolitical One of the dumps was the size of half area where a number of larger nations a fnothall field, and was covered to the have interests. The OA, Chemical, and depth of at least two feet with ashes- Atomic Workers saw it as an outright tqs scrap. Thick vegetation sprouting test of the Occupational Safety and through a covering of asbestos in sur- Health Administration'* willingness to rounding gullies showed that the dump enforce the provisions of tltc Occupa- had been in use for many years. Yan- rional Safety and Health Act; the He told Wodka and Lcmen that as- KIOSH people, who had exposed the lxrstos scrap was still being trucked situation at the factory to begin with, there daAy, and his statement was sub- were waning to See how the Occupa- standated by the presence of wads of dnnal Safety and Health people would asbestos fibre covering the access road- dispose of the recommendations that way. Since the company had under- had been made to correct it, in order taken to put soil over two dumps adja- to gauge the effectiveness of the ad eem to the factory which had been seen visory role they themselves had been by the KIOSH investigators during their given under the Act; and the Occupa October survey, its continued use of tional Safety and Health people, who this third, more remote dump site could had jiqt seen fit to ten the union about be construed only as an act of blatant tlte minor nature of the penalties they disregard and deception. However, for had'imposed upon Pittsburgh Coming, sheer brazenness the Pittsburgh Com- could not have failed to view the affair ing people outdid themselves a few as a potentially embarrassing scandal, weeks later, when they learned that die coming at a most inopportune moment. third dump had been discovered. At Under the provisions of the Occupa that point, they simply posted tional Safety and Health Act, an armed guard at the rite, the emergency -standard for with instructions to turn all asbestos that had been de unauthorized persons away. clared by the Secretary of . After taking photographs of Labor, on December 7th had the- dump, Yandle, Wodka, to be replaced bv a permanent and Lemcn drove to the EAc- standard within six months. ner Nurseries, a huge outfit The law also required the on the west ride of Tyler, whre' they Department of Labor to hold public interviewed Elbert Fenton,- the man hearings hefore it promulgated a new in charge of sales and 'distribution. standard, and notice that hearings on Fenton told them that a shipment of the asbestos standard would begin in thirty thousand . burlap bags,- costing March was to he published in the Ft ri- twelve hundred dollars, had been re frnl Rfgijt/T on January 12th. Since ceived from Pittsburgh Corning some the permanent standard on asbestos was months before, and he took his visitors the first ruling the Occupational Safety out to a barn where some fifteen hun and Health Administration would make dred of the hags were stacked in |>fles. under its mandate to redefine <xviipa- The hags were visibly contaminated tionnl-safctv-aiid-henhh regulations, in with asbestos, and even as J-cmcn and dustry and labor were prepared m look , Wodka were telling Fenton about the upon the ruling ns an indication of hove - hazard of using them, a woman worle deterinincd.or easygoing the Adminis- ; cr entered the barn, picked up a bag, tration would-be-when it-came time to! er shaking it vigorijusly m re-. set pc]>V.-..standarddss-for tailller hazards, | 'ftjflvt.- the'dust, slung it over tine slutul- such aslead, beryllium, cnarlxin moiiox- der and walked out. With Fenton's ide, mercury, silica, ultraviolet light, ' ant! ViKt.m*'fibres.. ring* :r<.J.V- xi ashe*t**v'tht-T; loomed a* a cntcial lest <>f strength hvtwren the indepettd-ent im-dical mil scientific community inti the mrdicnl-tndujtrial complex. On the one hand, the N'lOSII people were preparing to until the Administration a document recommending: that the perDHiKitt standard for occupational ex posure to asbestos he set at two fibre* per cubic centimetre, which was the standard that the British Inspectorate of Factories--the Administration's Engbh counterpart--had set in 1968, the one that Dr. Sefikoff had advocated in 1969, and the one that the.A.F.I--C.I.O.'s Industrial Union Depart ment's ad-hoc Comtrittce on the As bestos Hazard had urged upon the Sec retary' of Labor in November of 1971. Ott-the other hand, the major asbestos companies, led hy the giant JohnsManville Corporation, were preparing testimony to show that the five-fibre Standard would prevent disease from occurring aiming asbestos workers, and economic statistics to demonstrate that a two-fihrr standard would drive them nut of business. In order to weigh all the evidence and decide upon a safe level of exposure in asbestos, the Occu pational Safety and Health Administra tion would obviously have to conduct itself in a completely impartial manner, for, even under the best of circum stances, its decision was hound to be ciincrovcritaL As things stood, however, hs claim to impartiaKiy was in question, because of its failure to enforce even the stamlanls for asbestos tliat it was now compelled to consider obsolete. And since its failure had nowhere been more recently and nakedly apparent titan in i handling of the critical situation that existed in the Tyler plant, and the Ad ministration was unhappy about the possibility that the citations and penal ties it had scut Pittsburgh Coming in Decrpthrr might become public knnwledge. The fact tliat under tile provi sions of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.such information was pub lic property *eein to have been furgntt*n. Already stung hv iIk* disclosure* Mazzoccbi Itad made at the science meeting, and eager' to amid (utiire embarrassment, the Oeeii|>atinual Safety and I I.altlt Adminisiraiiou now sought to place itself above reprieich In publicly revising its attitude toward H'c|eiiiiiiial exposure to asbestos. On Januart 4th, George Guenther, who was the Assistant Secretar) nf JL-thor and the direetor of tin- Occupational Safety and Health Administration, held a press conf. ninv in Washington to -a '!, - v--vS-'. -i.' , jutnoonce'thcT'.start *>f-a target health- . hazard* pragtamdefighed to contml '' five toxic substances that were in wide spread use in American industry-- silica, lead, carbon monoxide, cotton dust, and ashestu*. At this time, a spe cial health-hazard fact sheet un asbestos was distributed to newsmen (and, pre sumably, to the Administration's re gional administrator* and inspectors), infiimting them that mure, than two hundred - thousand workers across the nation risked serious disease from direct tccupatinnal exposure to asbestos and that asbestos fibres were, being found in the fungs of people who had had no in dustrial exposure to the mineral at all. 'rite fact sheet reminded everyone that the emergency standard far ashewos was an eight-hour average of five fibres greater than five microns in length per cubic centimetre of air, and it stated unequivocally that any exposure' ex ceeding this level would henceforth he considered a serious violation of the Oc cupational Safely and Health Act. It soon became apparent, however, that it was one thing for the director if the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to announce a new poli cy on asbestos in Washington and quite another for that policy to he pot into effect by lits subordinates in the field. On January 13tl, a work after Farktis and Van Home had assured Wodka that all conditions on which the Admin istration Itnd called for immediate com pliance had been corrected, the Tyler plant was reinspectcd hy Clarence R. Holder, an assistant administrator in the Dallas office of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and John P. Boyle, an industrial hygienist, who together had conducted a similar inspection at Tyler nearly two months -before. Holder and Boyle found on their second inspection of the plant tliat, contrary to recommendations made after tlteir first visit, the workers'had ntit been examined to determine wheth er they were physically aide to wear respirators, that required improvements on a block saw and on fceding-tnacliiiu- enclosures liad not been made, ami that cleanup procedures in the feeding and building areas of the plant remained in- trdequate. Tile two men reviewed the situation with Van Horne, but wltvn lin t stressed the necessity of cleaning up ashestu* waste around the feeding ma chines and the builder units, the plant manager asked them whether this meant that the factory would have to he kep as clean as a dairy. spite of the company's gductane ., to Take 'this inspection seriously, Holdc and J'ovle issued no new citations but j?.vrbp!y sent Pittsburgh Corning a iiti; fication of failure to correct three uf the .. ordinal violations and a list of proposed . .additional penalties. Moreover, in spite ' of the new policy- on asbestos tliat had been announced hy Assistant Secretary Guenther ten days earlier, they stiil chose to consider the violations at the Tyler plant nonserioos. Therefore, the proposed additional penaltk-s were ha.d upon a schedule of a hundred dollar* for each day of nnncompiiancc, plus fifty per cent of the original fine. The period of noncompliance ran front December 21, 1971, to January *13, 1972, and the tntal additional assess ment amounted to six thousand nine hundred and ninety dollars. The notification of failure to correct violations and the fist of new penal ties were mailed to E. W. Holman, Pittsburgh Coming's vice-president in charge of manufacturing and technolo gy, cm .January 17th. .It is not known j whether Holman received them prior to. his' telephone interview with the Tyler Courier-Times on January 19th, nor' is it known whether he had read the citations that were mailed to him on December 16th; whether he had. been informed of two N'lOSII reports-- one describing the critical occupationalhealth situation at the Tyler plant and the other the symptoms of ashestosis in { seven of the workers there--that were I sent to Dr. Grant, in November and j ' December; whether he had'bcen told by Dr. Grant of the death of Van 1 Home's predecessor from mesotheli oma; or whether he was aware of the admissions about the incidence nf asbestitsis among the Tvlcr workers which Dr. Grant had made in Dr. Hurst's office, on January 7th. If Hol man did not know of these things, he must surely have been one of the .most ill-iitfomtcd vice-presidents in corporate history. Whatever the case, on J.-tmtary 19tlt he told the CourierTimes that he knew of no Pittsburgh Corning employee suffering any signifi cant illness as a result of working \\ iih amosite-nsbestos insulation. By that time, with the Tyler affaii not just huhhling hut about to twif ver, practically everyone involved ir ic situation Was maneuvering for po-j lion. Tile Texas State Depart tin ill uf| Icnlth had already put some distauo I etween itself and the stove; Pittsburgh 'orning was hacking ton.-ini the <! -i<r; lie Occupational Safetv and lUalrit \dininistratioii had little choice but -.o fit on the lid; and.tlie union and .VIOMI were separately, gathering fuel for the ' JtrcT'On the vi-Ty' day tliat Holman talked to Tin- ('viirier-Time, f. nun ' " v^:;' Sent r\'ifclka^aJTcpiirTcontaining the1 results "of tests performed hy-Roy'M. Fleming,'an engineer in the Erivironmcntal' Investigations ' branch of .VlOSli'* Division f FieUl Studies jind rnininl. Investigations, on one of the irlap bags tiiat had been taken from the nursery in Tvler un January 7th. The bag, still in hs scaled container, was placed in front of a chair in a room that urns free of asbestos. A man wearing a respirator and two dust samplers entered'the room and sat on the chair. Taking the-burlap hag out of the plastic container,* he turned it inside out; then, sanding, he shook the bag for sixty seconds. Next he sat down, spread the hag on bis bp, and wrapped it around the base of a small tree. After tying the corners of the bag widv-wire, he placed the tree on the floor, stood up to brush off his clothes, and left the room. During the four minutes this operation required, the average concentration of asbestos fibres longer than five microns around the worker was four hundred and ninety fibres per cubic centimetre of air-- ninety-eight times the emergency fivefibre standard and more than forty tunes tltc old twelve-fibre one. (In deed, had he not been wearing a res pirator, the man would have inhaled ic four million fibres during the .jr-minute period.) In a covering let ter that was sent with a copy of the report to the Texas Sate Department of Health on January 17th, Lenten and Fleming described the use of bur lap hags that had contained asbestos as a potentially serious health prob lem, and, by way of documenting this charge, pointed out that a recent report in the British Mniurnl Bulletin referred to cases of mesothelioma in women who had been engaged in cleaning such bags. In the meantime, Wodka had Wen trying without success to get informa tion from John K. Ilarto, the region al administrator of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, in Dallas, on tltc Administration's actions about Tyler. Finally, on January 28th, Barto told Wodka tiiat lie was under orders from his superiors in Washing ton "not to disclose anvthing on the Tyler case to am both." He did, Imwever, tell Wodka ahout the ftillow'tip inflection made hv Holder and Boyle <> 'antinry litli, and ahout the addil i pm|ioscd penalties levied against Pittsburgh Corning as a resulr of it. Bnrto refused to release the re|mrt of the Department of I-abor's 1969 in spection of the Tyler factory or of the dust counts that Holder and Boyle hail JSfViakgji there hi November, claiming that \ sent on February" Ktb 1>V A. F; Gritsai ^'.ci'he felt obligated to withhold them be- . piron, the president of tlie union, to cause of the possibility that Pittsburgh William Ruclxlshaus, the AdmiiiNtnt- Corning might contest the fines and tor of the Environmental Pnitection send the Tyler case into litigation. Since Wodka and Mazzncchi considered this Agency, and to Assistant Secretary Gucntiier. The telegram to Ruckels- a bme excuse designed to cover up the haus utged him to take immediate ac Department of Litwr'i failure in im tion regarding the open asbestos dumps plement the provisions nf the Wakh- in Tykr and the tens of thousands of Healcy Act in 1969, and the regula conmnututed hags that had been sold tions nf the Occupational Safety and to nurseries in the Tyler area, and to Health Act in 1971, they now de place Pittsburgh Coming Under sur termined to make a fresh attempt, as veillance* to prevent the repetition of they put k, to "Wow the ltd off the Tyler affair and focus national atten such practices in other places. The tele gram to Guenther pointed- out the De tion -tqion it." * !* The two union offiriak were well partment of Labor's laxity in not hav ing enforced asbestos regulations at the aware that their decision amounted to Tyler plant in the past, and urged him a declaration of open war upon the to investigate. Pittsburgh Coming's op Occupational Safety and Health Ad erations in other places. ministration and Pittsburgh Coming. Mazzoccht next reviewed the chro Indeed, for several weeks Wodka had nology and die findings of the various been compiling a history of the Tyler inspections of the Tyler factor)* over plant for a confidential report entitled the yean, and then he bunched into "Occupational Health Tragedy," an angry denunciation of the callous which amounted to a battle plan for ness and ignorance that Iiad allowed the approaching hostilities. In the con the conditions there to go uncrfrrcctcd. cluding section of the' report, Wodka "Industry ducton and government of urged that a pres* conference he held ficials who cover up vital life-and-dcath in Washington to provoke the Environ information about worker health arc mental Protection Agency into raking - guilt)' of the My Lai syndrome," he action on the open-air dumps and con dccb'red, and he went on to note that taminated bags, to force the Occupa what had happened at Tyler was prob tional Safety and Health' Administra ably happening in hundreds of other tion to declare an imminent-danger pbnts in America, and was symptomat situation at the Tyler factor)' under ic of the occupational-disease problem the provisions of the Occupational Safe in this country. He concluded by de ty and Health Act, and to' denounce scribing Pittsburgh Copiing's reaction Pittsburgh Corning for its callous dis to the KIOSH survey and die Adminis regard of the health of the Tyler tration citations. "This company was workers. Realizing that much of the receiving a subsidy in terms of years of opprobrium for what had gone on in men's lives," he said. "When tiiat the Tyler plant was bound to be- offset subsidy was terminated by belated gov by Pittsburgh Coming's decision to ernment intervention, the company de close the plant, Wodka concluded his rided to quit the asbestos business alto- report hy saying: ' gether." Neither Guenther nor Ruck We have a responsibility to point out what protection Pittsburgh Corning failed to provide for the workers at Tylfr and. instead, what utter contempt this cmfipaoy displayed for the lives of those workers, their families, and that community. The Tyler ease it unique in that this company was aware as early us 196.2 that something elshaus responded to the telegrams ser by Grospimn, and only two maju newspapers ran articles on MazzocchP charges. Down in 'Ij lerv however, the Pitts burgh Coming plant got back into tin news by way of a dispatch from Uniter was wrong in Tyler. Pittsburgh Corning was not ignorant, but was fully aware of what was going to happen to those men in that plant. The company would very much like to sec the plant shut down, the men quietly fade away, and the Tyler pin removed from their corporate map. 'I"he last place thr company wants to he is on page I. Press International that was based tt|vin a press release issued hi union head quarters, ill Denver, on Februarv 9th. The release Was concerned chiefly with the contaminated burlap hags. As a re sult, When the store appeared in the Tyler papers, the Coittirr^Timei and tlie Morning 7 rJegnif'ft, on Februarv The press conference that Wodka had requested was held on February lflth at the National Press Building in fwjtiwgton, and was conducted hv (7>ttcchi,~who opened tlie proceed ings hy reading telegrams that had been I 7tli, there was no mention whaisoeier of die KlOStl report, of the Adminis tration citations and fines, orofjtlie fact that serious illties.-* h;nl_ already mainfvstecRfself among*the sisty-ihrer-man _ work force afthe Tyler factor)-. The --- jrtpnrt ift the Mfirmttf .Trlcgrtfft yen earned beneath a banner headline that read "Threat of Cancer Alleged," the article in the Courier-Times appeared 'beneath the caption "Company I)enKS Claims by Union," and hath pieces isted mostly of charges levelled hy a union official about the contaminated burlap hags and denials of the charges by Gerald J. Vorus, a public-relations epokesman for Pittsburgh Coming. Ac cording to both accounts, however, Vorus admitted, that "workers at -the plant had been given physical examina tions to determine if any of them ex hibited' contamination Symptoms," and that "those whom the examinations re vealed had been affected were referred .to. their personal physicians." He was quoted as saying, when asked by the TeUgrjgfh what the company would do if any of these afflictions could he attributed to asbestos dust, "I don't know. Well just have to wait and see." Voms was, of course, being nnncummiital only about Pittsburgh Com ing's responsibility to the sixty-three workers, who were employed at the Tyler plant when h was shut down, on February 3rd, since neither Pittsburgh Coming nor the Union Asbestos & Rubber Company, the factory's pre vious owner, can be held legally ac- ntahle for what may happen to the it hundred and thirty-two otlrer men who toiled in the factory at one tune, or another during the seventeen .years it was in operation. ^Thus, in the middle of February, Pittsburgh Coming found itself com pelled for the first time to issue public denials of wrongdoing in connection with its Tyler plant, even as it took steps to deny public access to the fac tory and its adjacent dumps, and to bury as much of the equipment and machinery from the place as possible. That the company should he placed on the defensive over some dumps and hurlap hags, and not because of tltc awful jeopardy in. which it liad put tlte health of hundreds of its workers and their families, seems ironic. It should not, however, come as any surprise. Much of industry in the United States has long operated on the assumption that it could endanger the lives of its employees with relative impunity--and without embarrassing publicity and pos sibly damaging repercussions--ns long '* did not overtly threaten tltc health safety of the community at large. Underlying this assumption is tfie fur ther assumption that workers are not so much.a |tart of the community as part of tile equipment and ntacliinery of production. As such, upon being} '. proved defective they become expend' aMe.'iThey, can be', replaced or trans ferred, or, if wont .comes m worst, given workmen's compensation { which ; in nuist states is minimal) and reared. At that point, they cease to he anyone's - responsibility. Like the eight hundred | and ninety-five men who worked in the { Tvler plant over the rears, they are : out of sight and out uf mind. In a sense, ; therefore;, like much of the factory itj self, they are buried. I FIRST heard about the Tyler plant when .-I attended the press confer' cnee that Mazxncchi held in Washing ton on February 1.0, 1972. Later, ! at my request, he provided me with copies of all the inspection'reports, sur veys, and studies that had been made of the factory over the yean, and after studying them I decided to go to Texas ; and talk with some of the people who : had been involved in the whole sad af fair. On Monday, March 6th, I flew to Dallas, where I paid a call on Barto, the regional administrator for the Oc cupational Safety* and Health Adminis tration. Barto, is a hearytet,- bejowlcd man in his early'fifties.-I was Ushered into his office shortly after noon, and when we had shaken, hands I took a - seat at a conference table in front of the desk and explained why I had come to j sec him. I "Look," he said. ".YIOSH referred the Tyler situation to us, and we con firmed what KIOSK had discovered. It's as simple as that." ' I told him that I was familiar with the contents of the KfOSH report and with the results of the Occupational Safety and .Health Administration's subsequent inspections, and that I was particularly interested in knowing more about the inspection of the factory tlint the Dallas office of the Department of Labor had conducted on February 13, I960. Barto replied that he had nor ar rived at tlie Dallas office until July of 1970, jo we would have |o dtsebss the matter with Holder, tlie assistant regional administrator, wlto had been there since 1961, and he buzzed .Holder on an intercom and asked him to bring a copy of the 1969 in flection re|H>rt. While we waited, Barto told me that when lie took over as re gional administrator there had been no industrial hygienist in the office .-md there had heen only three inspectors for tlie region, a five-state area com prising Texas, I aiuisiana, Oklahoma, -Arkansas, and New Mexico. "A plant *5^11 as..- Tyler simply coitQjtWhe' - checked under those conditions," he pid. "Believe me, that was a minuscule problem compared to others we had." - Holder came in'and took a seat op posite me at the conference table.. He struck me as being an arclietypnl Tex an--a tall, lean, tanned man in lik late forties, with wan' blond hair and a rugged, seamy face. After Barto had explained the purpose uf my visit, I asked Holder if the Department of I Labor had ever inspected the Tyler plant before February 13, 1969. He shook his head. I then asked him if he knew of any previous inspections that ' had1 been conducted- hy agencies' with enforcement power, such as the Texas State Department of Health. He rc- plied that he did nut. When I told him that I was particularly interested in learning more-about the 1969 inspec tion conducted by the Dallas office, he replied tersely that on that date the Tyler plant had been found to he un satisfactory according to the provisions of the Wakh-Hcalcy Act. (This was an Act, sail effective in 1969, that established occupational-safety-and- health standards for .employees of com panies holding contracts of ten thousand dollars or more with the federal gov ernment.) I then' asked Holder on what specific grounds the factory had proved to be unsatisfactory, and he answered that the exhaust systems were deficient in terms of airflow, and that there was excessive dust'. . . At that point, I inquired what steps had been taken to determine whether the Pittsburgh Coming people had cor- - reeled the unsatisfactory conditions in the Tyler plant. Holder replied that the company had agreed that it would initiate a research-and-development program to improve the ventilation.sys tem, that it would study the possibility <if replacing asbestos with a substitute material, and that it would provide res pirators in the meantime, to protect the workers in tlie particularly dusty areas of the plant. He went on to say iliat the Walsh-Healey Act allowed th" conqtany to exceed the ashestos-di standard if respirators were issued ar worn, and tliat the issuance of reSpir; tors had therefore satisfied him as fa as any violations of the Act were con rcrnctL I asked Holder how he knew tha tlie employers in tlk: T-yler plant h.-m received .respirators. "Because the cnni|tnny had in issue them in order to come into compliance with the Walsh-1 lealev Act," he replied. Rephrasing the question, f asked hint'' if lie had any first-hand knowledge that . iht^Tffinpany hndfWTTijtlied. --" For a moment. Holder remained silent. Then, quietly, he asked inc if,' by any charier, T was hard of hearing. I replied that I didn't think *n hut that pcrltnps I had not undentN<d 1. `Well, I think you must be hard of hearing, fclL-t," he commut'd, "be cause didn't I just explain all that to you?" I repeated that peritaps I had not understood him, and, rephrasing the question once' more, asked him how he could be certain that Pittsburgh Com ing had issued respirators to its em ployees following the 1969 inspection. After glancing at Barto, Holder said that, the company had assured him at that time that it would undertake a study to improve the ventilation system. and that it would issue respirators. He had no reason to believe that Pittsburgh Coming had not kept its word, he added. I asked Holder if it was norma) pro cedure to accept a company's statement of intention as evidence of compliance with occupational-health regulations, and he replied that he felt it was. I then asked him if he. or.anyone else from the Dallas office had ever reinspcctcd the Tyler plant to' determine whether tlie company luid come into hplinncc. At that, Barto held tip his hand. No sense beating around the hush with this," he said. "What Holder's saying is that we did not reinspect. Let's leave it at that." Since this seemed tile only 'Sensible course to take, I got to my feet; thanked both men for their time, and left the room. Holder billowed me out, and engaged me in conversation as I was putting on my oeit. "You know, the trouble with respirators out there is Some of those hoys really like their chewing tobacco," he told me in a cim* fidential tone. "Why, you can't get them to wear a mask no way." I asked Holder if he knew that asbestos- inhalation could cause not only (Hilmonary scarring hut lung can cer, mesothelioma, and other malignan cies. He replied that he had never heard of mesothelioma and that he doubted if there was any real proof that asbestos could cause cancer. "If such proof existed, would you still characterize the violations at Tyler lonserious?" I asked. "You know, this health business is always being exaggerated, in my view,1 Holder said. "I didn't see any serious danger in the Tyler situation, anti I still don't. How can there be a serious danger if it doesn't hurt you right ----- > f ......... ...... : I...... ,11...; ' ir. three' men working in"'very Musty areas had rvqtiestvd them. "It was more or less voluntary in 1969," Ik* ex- HALF an hour bier, I was driving - plained. "And after a few weeks the a rented car east on Interstate 20, guys stopped wearing them." toward Tyler, ahuut a hundred miles I asked Yandle when he had first away. Fur the first fifty-or sixty miles, been told that asbestos was hazardous the country was flat and dotted with to work with, and he said it was in Au grazing cattle; then k became hilly and gust of 1971, when I)r. Grant came wnoded. Here and there, a pale-green down to give the men a talk. "\Yc wash of buds on bushes growing in wet were real mad about the masks," he draws signalled the approach of spring, Said. "Heck, I'd been working- there hut the hint seemed lost against a larg ten years- without one, and they were a er background of brown fields, skeletal pain in the neck tn wear, especially in ' trees,' ret! chf soil, and -a'vast' sky the summer,-when it got so hot in there filled with circling buzzards. At about ymi'd sweat and couldn't get enough air four-thirty in'the afternoon, I turned through to breathe. So when Dr. Grant '-off.Interstate 20 and drove south on called mv shift into the shipping super- ' UJS. Highway 69 to a motel on the 'visor's office, the first thing we asked outskirts of Tyler, where I had made a him was how long we were 'going to reservation. At the turnoff, there was have to wear the respirators. He said no a brge billboard, erected by the Peo longer than a year, because the company ples National Bank ttf Tyler, that read was going to shift over from asbestos "Life Is a Bed of Roses." to mineral wool. He had a blackboard When I got to the motel, I tele set up in there with a lot of complicated phoned Dr. Hum, at the -East Texas wants and .numbers on it that none Chest Htitpital, and `made an appoint of'us could -make head or tail of. I re ment to see him the next afternoon. member he mid that thc company could Then I got in touch with Yandlc, the make the whole pbnt dust-free but local union chairman, who lives in they couldn't make tlie finished product Hawkins, a small town eighteen miles safe for the insulators to use. When north of Tyler. Yandle lias no tele somebody asked him about better dust phone, hut his wife's grandmother's collectors, he said that profits wouldn't house is next door, and she went over allow them now. He said that the aino- to get him. I had called him from New sito mines in South Africa were running York' and fold him I'-wanted to talk out and that the'rates were getting nio with him, and when he came to' the high for the company to hear the cost. phone a few minutes later he said lie He also said it had been known shiee would he along within an hour. While 1963 tliat asbestos could hurt us. At I waited for him, I drew up a the same time, he said that list of questions for Van Horne, amositc asbestos didn't cause Pittsburgh Coming's plant man nimble if you didn't smoke-- ager, whom I planned to see that it wasn't proved medically tlie following day. that it could cause trouble. He Yandle, who arrived shortly liad it written on the black* before six o'clock, proved to he hoard that seventeen per-cent a tall, henvyset man with an cn- of the people who work with gnging grin and an easygoing . asbestos have lung cancer, but, manner. He came into the room,* he told us that was another,kind stuck <Hit a luiml, and plnp|>cd of asbestos. He claimed that if down in an easy chair. I asked- you didn't smoke you didn't him to tell iiu- something about Ilave any more chance of catch himself aiiit his work history, ing cancer in the plant than you and lie said tltat Ik- w.-is thirty-six did walking out in the street. He also years old ami ll.-ul gone to wmk at the wrote a word I can't pronounce-- Tyler plant in the autumn of 1961. He meso-snmething." had spent three ami a half wars in the "Mesothelioma?" 1 asked. production department, he went on, "That's it," Yandle replied. "l>r. working on the feeder and scrap ma Grant said fur us not to worn ahoot chines, and for the past seven years lie that, either. Ksperiallf if .we didn't had been in the shipping department. smoke. Cigarettes and asbestos don't The first time he had ever worn a res go together, is what lu- told if-. Next pirator was in full- of 1971, he told thing we knew, they -were sending ns ^aiul.lt was also jlic first time he had over jol)r. Horst at the. Kast Texas <-vBr-seen"any of his co-workeFs "wear Chest Hospital for X-rays, lung-func ing respirators except for a short |vri- tion tests, and Mood IrMs." ...I ,i r i Am X-rwwl before then,' and, Ir sail -he ^vj^VtHoflAaLJn iJ969, .'fwherc they M V(, ^`.^'Jdi hv-fp In' piu-its,- a-clea^ \ hail, chi two occasions. "Biith''times, K -V*. fount!' .tputs' un his lungs and made a of . wliatv had gone on in tlte , .was at tlic* Medical and Surgical Clinic f'-^bi'^^/ Aiid a whole bunch of others I Tyler plant. in Tyler," be told me. "They're the could'"name. So when Steve Wodka ' "'Veil, then, you might to talk to , ones wIh> lundled all the accident work and I Went over to the East Texas Frank Spencer,"; Ik- safal. "He's Har '<id medical stuff for Pittsburgh Corn** . Chest Hospital fat January td meet with old's fatru-r, and-, tin* interesting thing g. The first time T got X-rayed teas Hurst, Grant, Farkns, Spiegel, and about hint that he used to work at the in 1961, when 1 went to work there, Lenten, and I heard that seven of us old Union Asbestos & Rubber Com and die next time was in the spring of who'd worked fat the plant for ten years pany . plant in - McGregor, down by 1969, not tong after the Department bad symptoms of asbestos, I wasn't Waco. Old Frank's got an awful prob '' Labor people inspected the plant. sitiprfacd. Wodka and I asked for a lem breathing these Jays, so he's almost According, to Van Home, all the X- thorough medical reading un the health always at home. Why don't I call him rays die}*, took of us in the spring of problems of each and every man in the up now? I might as well call Ray 1969 were good. We never saw. them, plant, and after that We began to hear a Barron, too. Ray lives'right dose, and of course, and Wouldn't have known different tune. Early in February, Van lie's part of the maintenance crew what to make of them if we had. I Home put Up a notice on the factory they've kept on to clean up the plant." came across them, just hy accident, last bulletin board scheduling appointments Yandle telephoned Spencer ami ar October, though, when die XIOSH with Dr. Hum for twenty-three of us, ranged for us to visit him at his house boys were down here making their who, it turned out, had something Intfcr in the evening. Then lk- called big inspection. I was taking them through the plant as the union rep resentative, and I spotted a whole stack - wrong on our medical tests. I went over there on the ninth with Arthur -Bearden, who'd worked in the plant Bamin and invited him to come to the motel. When he had hung up, I asked him to tell me wKat Ik* knew about the of something on a shelf high up in the for about sixteen years. I went in first, burlap bags that asbestos was shipped to men's room. So I climbed up there and took a look. It turned out to be our and Dr. Hum read off a lot of num bers and said that after a recheck of Tyler in and that were later Sold to nurseries in tin* Dallas-Tylcr area. 1969 X-rays, but they were so old and cracked and covered with dust and dirt you couldn't have made out a my tests they'd made a new diagnosis. He told me that I had symptoms of early asbestos* hut that my condition "That's a real laugh," Ik* said. "I mean about them recalling thirty-five tltousa'nd of those hags fnmi the local thing " .. I asked Yandle. what he and his ffel-- wasn't so had' as tome of the others'. .He said that a few more weeks in the nurseries. You see, the amositv came in hundred-pound bags fnrnt South low--workers were told about the Xrays and tests that Dr. Hurst had per plant wouldn't hurt but that after it shut down I shouldn't try to find work Africa to New. Orleans and Houston, and then it was freiglitrd over Jicrc on formed die previous August, and he in a foundry nr a welding shop, or the Cotton Belt Route. Now, I happen id they were not told anything until . few weeks before the NIOSIt inspec anyplace where it's dusty, and he ad vised me to look for a truck-driving to know that from 1963 to 1967 Pitts burgh Corning sold those bags t the tion in October. "Early in October, job. He told the exact same thing to Coastal Bag & Bagging Corporation, two of us went over to the hospital to Arthur Bearden. Naturally,* one of the of Houston. Then, after 1967, they ask Dri Hurst for our medical reports," tilings I asked Dr..-Hurst .-was what started selling them locally--mostly to he went on. "Dr. Hurst said tltat he I could do for myself. And that's the nurseries. Anyway, what I'm get had sent them to Van Horne and Dr. Grant. He explained tliat lie was obli gated to Pittsburgh Corning, because when it dawned on me that I was in real bad trouble, because he said that there was no medicine or cure for as- ting at is that the thirty-five thousand hags are just a drop in the bucket. I-ook at it this way. Wc used two hundred he had done the tests for them, hut that, as a medical doctor, he was also obli gated to us. He said we had no ashestoss on our diagnosis, and tliat if there were shadows on the X-rays they were bestok, and that I had to keep com ing back every two years for another examination to see if it was getting worse." I asked Yandle how he felt these sacks of amositc a day in production, and we worked a five-day week. That makes a thousand bags a week, ai fiftv-two thousand bags a year. Is th right?" probably not related to.aabestusb. He said that as far as he coiild tell there were no health problems that were re lated to our work, but there were peo ple wiuvhad emphysema and bronchitis, wldch he said was on account of smok ing. When a JCIOSH doctor examined me a few weeks later, though, In.- said he was sure. I hail a good dose of a.-- bestosis. Also, I'd la-gun to think hack on things and to wise up ou my own. I , remembered when Willie Hum had to quit a few years ago hccausc he was 'ting up blood. And Robert Thomas, .jcighhnr of mine up in Hawkins, who hasn't been able to breathe good for a ! long time now. And Kd I-and, with tin* . same trouble. And Rill Morris, who ( 'was spitting up blood, too, and took days, and he said not had. "It's kind of hard to explain," he went on. "But if I exert myself real fast, I kirfd 'of just give out." Yandle added that in addition to Bearden and himself, Rob ert Thomas, Mitchell Walker, Tom Belcher, and Harold S|>encer had hcen told hy Dr. Hurst tliat they had symp toms of early asbestosis, and had been advised not to work in dusty places. "There's a seventh guy with the same trouble, hut he's a supervisor and he won't talk about it," Yandle said. "We hear that tin- company settled six months' pay on all the supervisors. These other fellows I told you about, tlmugh--they'll talk, and if you want I -gg&jntriKluce you to some of tlicm," _ ^tTMoW Yandle I would like to'meet "Right," I said. "O.K^" Yandle went on. "Fife two thousand bags a year for ten yea gives you how much?" "More thau lialf a million," I rt plied. "More tlian lialf a million," Yniull xiid quietly. ``And you know what They leaked like crazy--all of them. 1 know, because I used to help unload them from the freight cars. Titer leaked like cnt7.v, and rin-r were dustv as could he." IT was nearly seven when Raj Bar ron arrived--a handsome,, strap-, ping, dark-haired man. of tliictv-fotir,witli a soft-spoken-joanner. JR. told me tluuHw^had worked at the Tvh-r plant himself over to the Gladcwatcr Munic- llieiti, and anyone else he could think for six years, first as a hag feeder, tlu-n t,j /-Vy* in the building- departihen^'and, now1 M a maintenance ntan.-^I-Wa* it hag feeder, for about ax months," he said. "It was my job to empty the amoste nut of the burlap sacks and into the eding machines. I fed about seyenty ,iundred-pund hags f asbestos on ev ery eight-hour shift I worked. Trou ble was, the asbestos wouldn't just pour out. It was packed in tight We had to dig it out with our hare hands." I asked Barron if he had ever worn a respirator when he was a bag feeder, and he shook his head; He had never worn one until August uf 1971, he said, when the company suddenly made ftmandafcry for the entire work force to wear respirators. "Some of us were is sued respirators a few years ago, but it was voluntary if we wanted to wear them, and since no one told us until last August that asbestos was dan gerous to work with, we didn't,", he said. "A11 of us in the maintenance crew are wearing 'em now, though. Except for Van Horne, who keeps say ing that asbestos won't hurt you. He also claims that none of our medical problems are caused by asbestos. My own X-ray is supposed to be clear, and my other tests are O.K., and I don't have finger clubbing, so they told me I was pruhahly all right. What worries ; is ttat word 'probably,' and wheth er IH be all right five or ten years from now. When I think tack, all I can re member k the dust. Why, most of'the 'tune- I worked there you couldn't see from one end of the place to tlie other--especially when there was any sunlight coining through the win dows." Barron then said that for the past several weeks he and three other main' - tenance men had been dismantling ma chinery and equipment with acetylene torches and burying most of k in a dump next to the plant.' "The little that's left k either being shipped up to -Pittsburgh or being' sold for scrap,"-he went on. "When we get through, the place'll be empty except for tlie surplus fibre that's still in the warehouse." "How. much of that is there?." I inquired. ' "There must he about ten thousand tags," Barron answered. "I hear they've already sold it to sonic outfit up in Canada." "I)o you know who they are or :rc in Canada thev arc?" "No," Barron said. "It's supposed to be n secret. But we'll he Iwsy full time down there for at least six more weeks, so I might hear something. We've only just begun to bury the ventilation pipe and we still have to finish cutting up P3fcn5>! ^ Ctrloflc niachuKSt '-v>, ^tiarrcmT'Icft shortly T after tight o'clock*and then Yandle and I drove nut die loop highway--one of a series nf roads that ginllc Tyler--1 the east side of town, where Frank Spcncvr and hts `wife hVe. 1V climbed the poirh steps, and Yandle knocked on a serpen door that opened into a small living room. Mr. and Mrs. Spencer were in side, sitting in rocking chain and watch ing a quiz show on a large color TV set Spencer, a white-haired, ruddy- faced man, was wearing bluc-and- white striped-overalls. Hk wife, also white-haired, was wearing a plain call-, co dress. After Yandle had introduced us, I sat down on a small couch and asked Spencer to tell me about Isis ex periences working with asbestos.' "Well, I worked with asbestos for twenty years or so," he said. "I started 1 in 1948 or 1949 in the old plant down in McGregor, where we wed to live. The factory' Was in the Bluebonnet! Ordnance Plant area, where they'd made bombs for the Air Force during tlie Second World War, and the gov ernment began reactivating the place in 19i2, so Union Asbestos & Rubber moved out and came up liere in '54., There was about sixty of us on the work force at McGregor, hut there was a big turnover. Most of us were farmers, and there w'as a lot of young farm hoys who came and went. Har old, my own son, .worked there, ton. In fact, I signed a paper saying he was eighteen, hut he was really only seventeen. That's so lie could get the job." I asked Spencer if he had ever worn a respirator at MeGrvgor, and he gave me a look of amazement. "Wore a respirator!" he exclaimed. "Why, I wore one all the time down there. They never said a word to its about as-, bt-stos being dangerous, hut they made us wear our resjiiraton;. Actually, 'it wasn't the company tluu did that. It was the insurance underwriters who said we had to wear 'em. I guess they must have known tliat that dust Couldn't be doin' us much good, ch? But, goodness' sakes, insurance under writers or nut, you would have hnil to wear a respirator down there--you couldn't have breathed otherwise. Most of tlie time, I couldn't hardly see the man working next to me!" "Do you ever get hack there?" I inquired. "We used to go hack all the time to ^Sj&ur,friends and relatives,''^jvwjcer replied!""Biit, one by one, just about all the men who worked with me at that place - tavej. died. Mostly, they, just ' seetnetl to stop breathing." "Some nf them died of cancer, too," Mrs. Spencer added, without taking her eyes from the TV set. "Chest can cer, the womenfolk told me." "I'll he axty-dx years old in May," Spencer said. "And I swear I'm just about the uhliest one I know that's left alive from that McGregor plant. Ex cept for my son, of course, and lie's alrvady got trouble with hk lungs. I've had trouble with mine for years. I .finally had to quit the Tyler plant in 1968. The)* disabled me. Just'cnuldn*t hardly breathe no more. Now I'm out nf breath all the time. Can't do nothSf mg. Can't walk any dkunce at all. When I quit, the}' started giving me some retirement payments--eighteen dollars a month. I should've done what Ed Land did. He quit around about 1962. He couldn't breathe, either, be cause a lung collapsed on hint. I heard he was going to sue, hut they settled with him." I asked Spencer if he was receiving any medical attention,'and he'smiled for the-first time. "I've been going to these local doctors for my lungs for years," he said. "I Spit up an awful lot, and I'm always out of breath, and I've got a funny-sounding cough. I guess I've Keen to. just about every last doc tor in that Medical and Surgical Clinic. All of-!em have told me I. tad some thing wrong on my X-ray's. Some of 'em have told me I got emphysema, and some of 'em say it's asthma, and at me time they even thought I had cancer, but not one of 'em ever said it was on account of asbestos. Well, they're a hunch of quacks. I know what I got now. I got what Ed Land got. I got what Harold's got. And all th> others. I .got that dust disease. Tha dust has ate us up." As Yandle and I left a few minute Liter, Spencer rose from his nick ing chair, saw us nut the door, am stood on the porch and hid its good bye. As we went down the steps, . turned to thank him, and saw- hiu leaning forward, hands on his knee* rocking hk head up and down. He wa gasping for air. , AT eight o'clock tlie next morning Yandle came hv the motel in hi tattered blue pickup. We hail a cup ui coffee in the dining room and then! drove out t Arthur Bearden's luuise,| on the cast side of town. Bearden s place was a -faded-green frante_dwell-. infrjhat sat on cinder Mocks, like most. - of the -houses in tjuT'area, and in the from yard ilicre was a twenty-five- foot-ltigh, \vmmetrica11y rounded, Ind wonderfully festive holly tree, so full of '<liiny green leave* and hright-red ber ries it looked as if it had been hung by 'hand. 'Warden cainc to tin* door, ushered .inside, and immediately offered tit brew us some coffee. He it a grave faced, soft-spoken man in his middle forties, and when Vandle told me he was famous for making strong coffee he responded with a broad grin of de light. Then, seating me at a table in the dining room, be disappeared into the kitchen. Yantflc went to get Har old Spencer, who lived in a trailer next door. When Bearden returned from the kitchen, he sat down across from me and told me that he had gone to work at the-Tylcr plant in March of 1955, a few months after it began operating. "I worked there until 1960," he said. "Then I was laid off for a year, but I went back in April'of 1961 and stayed until the plant closed down last month. So, all in all, I figure I worked with asbestos about sixteen years. Dur ing^ that time,. I .guess I worked in. most areas of the production depart ment. I never wore n respirator until last August, and I never saw anyone else wearing one except for a few fcl- s on tile fevder machines and in the k.# mom hack in 1969. Those were probably tlw dustiest areas in the plant, but the whole place was so dusty it's hard to tell for sure. Most days, you couldn't sec from the middle of the building to either end." At this point, Yandle returned with Harold Spencer, a man in his late thirties, who wears a grin that masks a diffident maimer and an air of fatal ism. When I told him I had met his father and mother the night before, he simply nodded and grinned a little wider, and sat down at tile table. 1 asked Spencer how long lie had worked with asbestos, and lie thought for a few moments and said lie guessed for-about seventeen years. "I worked at the Un ion Asbestos 8c Ruhl>er plant in Mc Gregor from *51 to '53," lie said"Then I worked at Tiler from '55 to '57, nnd thru-I came hack in I960 and worked steady from then on until the plant closed down last month. Nobody ever told me the stuff would hurt its, and I never wore a respirator until last just, wlien evervbodv hail to start .aring them. Hack around last Thanksgiving time, I got called over to the East Texas Chest Hospital by a Or. Seaman, who told me I had a spot oil my left lung. He didn't say what it was, hut lie offered to treat me as an '^ ri outparient He .jsfSl I could keep on working at the plant that way. I wmt .'to him fur about two months. During ' . December and January, I went once a week, on Tuesday morning. They took X-ny pictures of me every time. Most irioniings, they jtist took a couple, hut one'morning they took eleven--one standing up and ten fiat on my hack. Another time, they swahhed out my mouth with anesthetic, put in some kind of a coating, and looked down into my chest whh some land of a tube. After ward, Dr. Seaman told me my left ' long Wasn't functioning' properly. I4 'asked him if it was on account of tinasbestos, but he said he couldn't say. All he could my was that there wasn't any surgery for it. Then, on February 9th, I got sent over there to see Dr. Hurst. He said I had what looked to him like asbestos scar tissue in mv lungs. He told me hot to work in dusty conditions anymore, and he said to come hack and see him in two years. By that tune, I was real worried and didn't know what to think. Whaf wnr- tied me must of all was what -a doctor from' XIOSH told me hack iri October. He had listened to me hreathe, and ho had looked real careful at my fingers, and lie had told me I had a rase of asbestosis." "That's what we all got," said Bearden,', looking around die table at Jib friyrids'and then at me. "WV just belter hope wc'don't get cancer. You know, some people have already died of cancer who worked there. Mr. McMillan--he was plant manager be fore Van florae--he died about a year and a half ago of some kind of cancer in the chest.. And Marvin King, one of the supervisors--he took sick back in 1958, I think it was, and died of lung cancer. And Chester Hickman, who'd been night watchman since the place opened--he died of cancer in June of 197!" Bearden went out to the kitchen and brought hack coffee for everyone. It turned out to he ns strong as any I lind i-ver tasted, and when I told him so le grinned with delight again. "Spencer here was tlu- only one of us that got Ireated . ns an outpatient," he said, "flack in October, Dr. Spiegel told me I hud a had sound in my lungs, but I didn't see Dr. Hurst until I went over to the East Texas Chest Hospital with Herman here in February. Dr. Hurst told nte I hail early stages of asbestosis ivith rales in my lungs, and that ] shouldn't try to find a job anyplace fStj!(jC-re "'as itiiit. The thing t&tnbothcrs me is 1 should've realized something was wrong hack iii 1968. I was off front tturfc' then wftlm -bladder infixtion and got sent over by the company to tec Dr. Smyth, at the Medical and Surgical Clinic. He gave me a physical examination ami listened to my chest and took some X-rays. A few hour* later, he called me hack and listened to my -chest again, but he didft't U-U me anything." "Funny tiling," Spencer murmured. "Back in 1969, f got my first X-ray at the Medical and Surgical Clinic,. and a Dr. Marshall over there told me* I had: a spot on my lung. He said in-'d be in : touch with me, but after I waited six months without hearing from him I got worried and went hack and saw a Dr. Whctsell there. Dr. Whctsell gave me * a checkup, and when lie was through I told him I thought that maybe I ought to change jobs, but he said Ik- couldn't guarantee I'd be hired anywhere else, because I might not be able to pass a physical.". While Spencer was talking, we were' joined by Willie Hunt, whom Yandle had invited over. Hunt if a gaunt man in his late fifties,' with sunken checks : and a shy manner. He.told me that be had staned work at the Tyler plant in January of 1956, and had stayed until November of 1969, when he quit. "I worked mostly on the feeding machine* and the oven*, and I hardly ever wore a respirator the wlwdc time," he *aid. "I remember, tliough, that around the end of May of 1969 some fellows from ` the union committee went in and asked Van Horne how come a few of die boys were suddenly wearing masks. Van Horne told them it was on account of the dust levels were high in the saw room and the feeding-machine area. So they asked him if the dust would hurt us, and Van Horne just said that even if it. did there wasn't any way anybody could he sure of it. Of course, by that time I was beginning to get Some idea of my own that die stuff wasn't good to hreathe. I!d been coughing bad for nearly three years, and I'd been to a lot of doctors. I went to see Dr. Thomas and Dr. South at tlw Medi cal . and Surgiciil Clinic, anil I went to Dr. Krtight nt the Glcnwood Gen eral Hospital, in Tiler. Dr. Smyth told me I ought not to work in dust, hut lie never said I'd Ik- disabled. Dr. Knight said I had emplivsenia in both lungs. He kept me at the Glen wood General Hospital for a week after I quit the plant. He ti>k a lot of X-rays and asked tile where l worked, fnit he didn't-tell me' anything_abnut tiu-JSjys and liy didn't say anything, alumt aslwstos. "Now I'm not worrlTa hoot to do anything. If I walk just a'Bnle-piece, I it't even breathe." : ' "Same with roc," nxl Bearden. "I jyicd a row in tin? garden the other day and I wa* out of breath entirely." * "The worn thing of all h we can't Tv~m a physical to get another job," iccr said. Bearden nodded soberly. "I got an application in at a plant that manu factures air-conditioners," he told me. "But I'm , a-scared to death of the physical. Hi take rt, but I'm afraid of it, 'cause I know I'won't pax if they take an X-ray dr listen to my lungs." For a moment, Bearden was uknt, looking around the table at his friends. "You "know," he said reflectively, "not everybody was as dumb as we were. I remember a new man walking in a few years ago. It was in 1970, I think. They had told me to explain the feed ers to him, and it was nighttime and the lights were tut and the dust was so thick it was fogging the lights. This fellow--I'll never forget him. He took a look at the feeders, and he walked partway down the plant floor. Then he turned and walked back past me and gave hb head a shake. And then he went right on out the door, without a word to anybody, and he never came back." T""` was about eleven o'clock when /amile and I returned to the motel. I had an appointment to see Van Home in an hour, and Yandle had to do somework around hb house.' We arranged to meet there late in the afternoon. Half an hour later, I drove east to U.S. Highway 271, where T turned north at a huge foundry that was belching smoke into the sky. About eight miles down the road, I passed a large, modern brick building surround ed by expansive lawns. A sign identifled.it as "East Texas Chest Hospital." A few hundred yards past the hospital, I turned west onto State Highway 155, where .there was a sign pointing the way to the Oweiitown Industrial'Dis trict. At tlie bottom of a hill, about a mile northwest of tlie hospital, I came to a flat valley filled with sheds, pre fabricated buildings, and some wooden warcluuiscs that had once been part of Camp Fannin, a Second World War training center and l'.O.W. camp. The wluilc place was crisscrossed by qiurs of iIk* St. Louis Southwestern Railway. Af' winding through tlie area for five o. i minutes, I came upon a pair of long, Imv slu-ils with peeling wooden facades and corrugated roofs, and saw a sign affixed tef the side of one of them which read "All Persons Entering This | Area illnsf Wear Approved Respirator! Pnitcrtiin." It_was a new white sign I with' briglit-rtnf lettering, ami against : the shabby hackgriiuiul it shuttt* like a beacon. At one end of tlie sheds was a green cinder-block office building with a sign reading "Pittsburgh Corning Corporation." I parked the car out fnmt, went in side, and gaw mV name to a rvcvptkutist in an anteroom, wIki announced my arrival on an intercom. A irinute later. Van Home came out, sitook my hand, and ushered me into fifr> office, tyhere . we sat rfiiwn - near his desk. He was a gray-haired, self-assured man iu his middle' forties, ami lie was wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a mustardcolored sports..jacket. WJien I told him tliat I wanted to talk with him about the plant,.he said he had been in much with the Pittsburgh office an hour be fore and had received certain orders. "I hare been instructed to lead a state ment m you," Van Horne continued. "It' b an autlmrized statement, and after I am done reading it I will have no further comment." Having said this, he got to his feet, picked up a sheet of paper from the top of his desk, adjusted Ids glasses, and* in the firm, measured tone of a schoolmaster explaining tlie rules to a new and possibly recalcitrant student, began reading. "Pittsburgh Corning, on its own initiative, lots closed die Tyler, Texas, plant and lias ceased asbestos production entirely,'' the 1 statement said. "We liave n plans for | further use of the Tyler plant and are making every effort to insure- Safe dis posal of any remaining waste material. We sincerely regret tlie adverse eco nomic impact tliat tile plant dosing might liave on our employees amt their families. Since 196/, we have inaite efforts and investments to reduce dust levels at the plant aiul have-.kept gov ernment agencies adviW. It lias ho-, come economically Itn|issible to reach j the increasing rigid dust levels estalslished by the federal govermnmt.'KacIi of the employees at the plant have been given complete physical cxnM.iinntiims and, in cooperation with local -officers of tin- Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union, We have established a job-counselling service to aid men in locating other work. There is no sub stantiation for the claim that burlap hags from tin- plant are a health ha/.-ud. Despite tlii>, we have recentlv bought from iiursvryim-n in the Dallas-Tylcr area some thirty-six thousand hags, which inn\ have emm* fmm our plant." When Van Horne finished reading, UpjEc^.Was a moment of constrained Wenee; then I got to my feet,`'thanked him fr giving nu- hi' time, am! asked ' him If I could have a copy of h staic" merit. He'.'rang for,the receptionist, - win) caiue in, took the statement, went out, and returned with a Xerox' copy. - Van Horne handed me. the Xerox, shook my hand, accompanied me to the front door, and wfeheii me a pleasant tr%> hack to New York City. I told him 1 was planning to stick around town for a While. Then i got into the car and drove away. WHEN I got hack to the motel, I went to my room to make a few phone calls. While I was looking up -come numbers in the local directory, I happened upon a description of the town, and teamed that it had been ' established in tlie early eighteen-forties and named for President John Tyler, who had advocated the annexation of ' Texas to the United States. According | to the phone book, Tyler had been "a ` small agricultural town with an aristo cratic background" until 1930, when the great East Texas oil field was dis covered. At that .point, the phone di rectory said, "Tyler became the of fice headquarters for two hundred and sixty-seven independent and major od producers, operators, and refiners working in the fields surrounding the city." Beneath the description was a j box with tlie heading "Some Interest ing Facts About Tyler." One of the interesting fans was that Tyler lias a twenty-etght-acre municipal garden containing twenty-five thousand rose1 bushes in three hundred and fifty vari eties. Another interesting (act was that "more. than-half of the field-grown rosebushes supplied to the entire nation come from within a fifty-mile radius of Tyler." The most interesung fact alxuit-Tyler I saw, however, was that it is the medical center of East Texas, with an e\'|iatiding complex* that in cludes the Medical'CeiUer Hospital, the .Mother Frances Hospital, two other general hospitals, four private clinics, and, mi the outskirts, the East Texas Chest Hospital, which lias eight hun dred and twenty-five beds. . Aftef'lunch, ^ drove out to the EnS' Texas Chest Hospital to keep my ap pointiuciit with Dr. Hurst. It was windy afteriiUm, with clouds scudding across the sky, and on a flag|xde in front of the main entrance to the hos pital the'American and L<mc Star flags were flapping to the accompaniment of rattling grommets. A lm of Texas redhud trees on the grounds were just be ginning to hliHiin, and they cast_n sheen'' of purple against the well-trimmed ._ grfeJFlnwns. SofiR^Tfisianee off, rain-' shackle woollen barracks with sagging 'roofs, |iccltng cla|d"iarif . wall*,' .and ..-..been codsuhed.by any-doctor.at the ypramL-ts evolving into-dehris- indicated `^Medical 'and Surgical Clinic about acy tliat, likv tiic nearby ()\vi-mwn Indus* ^vmrlir at this Pittsburgh Coming plant rial District, tin- mo had once hern - wlio had bad to `stiip work because of part f Camp Kamtin. 4 After sjtending a few minutes in a w-;-`ng room, I was directed, to the . pulmonary' insufficiency. . "No," be said. "Never. I only ex amined men sent me by the company, c of I)r. Hurst, whom I found to who were working and were apparent be a tail, tliin man in iiis Late thirties, ly weD." witii dark hair, an earnest manner, and I told Dr. Hunt tliat several of the a mild wat; of speaking. Born in Minas Gems, in Brazil, where tik father was a missionary, !>r. Hursf received sbestos workers I bad talked with had . safcl that doctors at the clinic had told them they were afflicted with emphy his training at the University of Texas Southwestern -Medical School, in Dal las; he then became a specialbt in pul monary disease, and for several years was a member of the staff of the Chest Division of WondL-twn Hospital, in Dallas. In 1964, lie was appointed clinical director of the' East /Icxas Chest Hospital, and in the autumn of 1970 he became superintendent of the institution. He told me that the hospital had been founded in 1949 as a tuber culosis hospital, and thin its major work bad always been in the field of tuberculosis treatment. "Since 1967, however, we've been treating patients afflicted with- other kinds of`pulmonary disease," he said. "The fact is that when Dr. Grant, as medical consult ant to Pittsburgh Corning, approached me late in 1966 about conducting a `cal survey f the workers in the , a*..esti>s factory here, it promised to be a real departure for us." sema or bronchitis, and that I had not yet met anyone who had been told by any doctor at the clinic that he was af flicted with asbestos*. I asked Dr. Hunt if this seemed strange to him. -vVi-For a moment, he was silent. Then he said, "You know,, there's-an awful lot of ignorance about occupational dis ease. The average doctor tends to minimize the danger of it. Some doc tors tend to Marne everything on ciga rettes.?* I asked Dr. Hunt if lie had learned at any time that Dr. .Cralley, .of the Bureau of Occupational Safety and Health, m Cincinnati, had not per formed the medical survey of the Tyler workers he had agreed to hack in 1967. "No,-I did not," he answered. "I assumed that the study had been con ducted, as Dr. Grant had indicated it . would he." . "What'reasons-did Dr.'Gram give when he called you last August and "Wliat reasons did Dr. Grant give you for wanting the study performed?" I asked. once again proposed that you examine and test the worken?" I inquired. "The same reasons Ik- gave nearly "He told me that the men were working with nmosite asltestos, and tliat tlic company wanted to know if they five years before," Dr. Hurst replied. "Did he tell you that Pittsburgh Coming had filed a request with the were cnctMintering any medical -prnbIcms as a result of their exposure." 'I remarked on the irony of the fac tory'* proximity to a hospital specializ Department of .Labor for a variance from occupational-health regulations, and that the request for a variance stated that the company Itnd already ing in pulmonary disease, and asked expanded its medical-examination pro Dr. Hitrst if he had known of the | gram?" plant's existence before Dr. Grant's "No," said Dr. Horst. visit. When I asked Dr. Hurst to describe Dr. Hurst slutok ttis beat! sombrely. the tests that were performed on tin- "No," he said. "I'd never heard of the Tyler workers at tile Hast TexafClu-st ph.ee." Hospital in August of 1971, he told "DM Dr. Grant give you any in.li- cation that Ik- suspected tile men might be getting sick Ix-cause of tlu-ir exposure me that they inclinled ventilatory] studies, to determine how fast air govj into and out of the lungs; lung-volume to asbestos: " studies, to slum- how much air the "No, he did not," J)r. Hurst re- lungs can ludd; hlood-gas studies, to plicd. "Obviously, lu- knew that exjKt* indicate how efficiently oxygen is get ,s.irc to asbestos could c.iik- pulmonary ting into the hliKKlstreain; diffusion j sis. 1 le simply told me that the-' studies, to indicate wliat Itapjiens ti ji...<i|iany had Iveil using the Medical oxygen and carhon dioxide in.llte lungs; anil Surgical Clinic, ami tliat it now and chest X-rays. wanted us to undertake h comprehen I then asked Dr. Hurst when Ik sive medical survey of its workers." fi^jtRttsjWcU-d tliat some of the qwrkcr- I asked Dr. Hurst if be had ever werc afflicted with asltestosis. "Well, ; that tiKit a ^WhileJ'bA-aiK- 'we'ywcreh't '. able to piill."all-mir data'together until W; November,"" he-^said.``''"liy'Vthen,' wv knew there teas evidence of fibrosis, or scarring of the lung,, on some of the X-rays. Some- of the men' also had dyspnea, or. shortness of breath, and there were decreases in' diffusion ca|vic in' as weft. In fact, all hut one of the seri-n mien in real trouble had low dif fusion. The .trouble was, we had riutdc a mistake in our formula for the diffu sion studies, anil didn't discover it until December. That's .why,it t*ok us o long to come up with a positive diagno sis of ashestosis." I then asked Dr. Hurst if he or anyone else was planning to perform followup medical studies of the Tyler workers or their, families, or of former workers or their families. "I've talked .about that' with Dr. Johnson, at KtOSit, with Dr. Norman Dyer, of the Environmental Protection Agency, in Dallas, and with my su periors in the Texas State Department of Health," he said. "I really can't say' what's going to happen, however. I suppose it's a question of where the money will come from." Next, I asked Dr. Hurst if the East Texas Chest" Hospital had ever .before examined workers on a consultant ha st* with a company. "Not to my knowledge," he replied. "Would you do it again?" "I- don't know/'' Dr. Hurst raid slowly. "The studies we performed for Pittsburgh Corning were good studies, and once we rectified the error in our diffusion tests they were thorough. But whether we should have got involved with the company in die first place is something I'm not sure about." t TT was about three-thirty .when I left X the hospital; so 1 took the shortest route to YandlcV house, driving north on State Highway 155, past the (hventown Industrial District. I continued, through Winona, to the- town of Big Sandy, where I turned west un U.S. Highway 80, toward Ilawkins. At tine ooiut, f crossed a bridge over a muddy, neandering stream, and then the road passed through mile after mile of |Hcan gnivi-s, where snow-white cattl-: grazed among thousands of frail black ! trees, whose delicate branches formed an intricate tracery aguiifct the skt. The jCettter tif Hawkins consists of four corners, uhere ITS. Highway Sl> ihisected ht 'State Highway 14. A sign there satis that the town has a_|x>pul.-!tioit of niiii-lmndreil and x:\eiiiy-si-ven. : fuUlfflyd north on Suite Highway If and, within, a mih or so, airbed :.T ~ . - ' . . s.b...,.:...... CFandMj place--a tnu)l|wii^:fRuc ':'"F ^ vv ' : -'t.'ipS?:' told .trie I.was breathing in better than house---and found Yandle standing In l|P??I-was breathing out, though. I asked the driveway. i y{mpiw>i/v_vBtv * wifl iiwittcnj #*00111 ''-'H';': him whyHc said some people do that. ' Yandle and I spent tlx." rest of the twdy)`care _agn, th(Kigli, I started to " He said maybe I was smoking too Afternoon hunting up men who had - i<F: feel* different m my chest. It ft-lt rind ked In the Tyler plant.'A mile all die tune,' and it hurt a kit. It's ken much. Funny thing is, I roll my own and I don't smoke an awful kit. About .n the nwd, we paid our first call, that way ever since, and these days I half a .pock a day, maybe. But I am Ht Dale Peek, a lean, good-hnikirtg fel cough so much in the morning I can't sure awful short-winded, and for the < low in hk late twenties, whom we hardly stand it." last few yean it's been getting worse found in. the yard behind his house, -A few moments later, Belcher's wife - and worse. I been coughing up a ter bending over the engine of a car. Peek called me into the house and showed rible (form in the mornings, too." was wearing, r hayy-bliic woo! watch me a copy of Dr. Hum's diagnostic After we said goodbye to J. C. cap, a shirt with the sleeves cut out, and report. According t<> the report, Bel Yandle, H brother and Peck and I Levf*. After v thnok bands, he stuffed cher had a reduction of forced vital ca drove toward Hawkins on State High hk hands into the hip pockets of his pacity, which k the maximum amount way 14 and, about a mile before Her Leri's, sat down on a fender of his car, of air he can take into bis lungs; a man Yandle's place, stopped at a* frame and told tnc.tha't he had worked at the twenty-fivc-perreent reduction in total house with brown asbestos siding Tyler plant for five years. "Like most lung capacity, which the' amount of where Ray Hicks, i former Tyler of the other boys, I lud a whole hunch air his lungs can hold; and a slight re : worker, Hved, with his mother. Hicks of.johs," he said. "I was a feeder, a duction in the amount of oxygen that wasn't at home, so we drove a little hudderpa saw-room laborer, and a scale gets into his bloodstream. In addition, farther aking the road, to a house man. Scale men are the ones Who his X-ray films showed an increase in where Hubert Thomas, another of the weigh the`boxes carrying the finished bronchovascular markings on the lower Tyler workers, was visiting some product. I finally quit the place in July left-lung field. Mrs. Belcher said that friends. As we were getting out of the of 1969, on account of -the respirators her husband's chest, was giving him a car, Hubert's brother Robert drove up, they had started making some of us great deal of pain, that he was worried with his wife, and parked just in front wear. I couldn't breathe through the about it, and that she was worried > of us. Robert Thomas was fifty years damn thing. I just couldn't get any air about 'his Worrying, because in additkm old, he had .worked at the Tyler plant into me, so I quit. Now I work making to hs pulmonary problems he had high for ten years and three months, and he corrugated boxes at the Continental blood pressure. was one of the. seven men whose symp Can plant. That's in the Owcntown When we left the Belchers, Yandle, toms had been diagnosed as those of Industrial District, too. The spring be Peek, and I drove to a place about seven asbestosis. "At the end, just before fore I quit, I'd been elected chairman miles north of Hawkins, where J. C. they closed the place down, I was ic union committee, and I went in Yandle, Herman's brother, lived, with working in the finishing department," to Van Home to ask him ahum some his wife and family, and worked as a he told me. "It was my job to push articles thpt some of the fellows were tenant rancher. He had a typical small 1 cartons of finished ^nstilatiun-' down reading that said asbestos was* had for Texas spread,, with a long blacktop along the factory floor. Trouble was, I you. Van Home passed it off with a drive leading up to a native-rock farm just couldn't push the damn things with shrug. He said that as far as he knew house that was surrounded by pastures out stopping every hundred feet to get the doctors had no way in the world of separated by well-kept fences. We my breath. My chest's been hurting knowing for wire iliat the stuff caused found J. C. Yandle in a field adjacent something awful lately, anil I've been you to get sick." With Peek accompanying us, Yan-j to the house, fixing a cultivator rig. He was a tall, thin, (can-faced man in his short of wind for the past five nr six years. I also cough a lot these days. die and I drove west about fifteen miles middle forties; he was wearing Leri's When I got called in hy Dr. Hurst Last to the town of Mineola, to see Tom and a denim jacket, and he looked as if month, he told me that he and the Belcher, one of the Seven men whosi symptoms had been diagnosed as those he had stepjxrd right out of a scene in "The Last Picture Show." After other doctors- at the hospital had de cided I prohably had emphysema or of asbestosis, and who kid been advised Herman introduced us, J.C. leaned .bronchitis. He also said I. could liavc , by Dr. Hurst not-to work in a dust) against a corral fence and, speaking symptoms of'a disease caused, by all.the environment. On the way, Yandle told very deliberately, tulil me that he hail dust I'd breathed over at the factor)*. me that Belcher had worked in the gone to work at the Tyler plant in He advised me not to accept any work plant for sixteen years, and that he had November of 1961. "I worked there near dust, like at one of the local pipe started as a feeder operator. steady until the place shut down last or foundry outfits, and he told me to "Him ami Willie Bunt," Peek nonth," he said. "During that whole quit smoking. He said that I should still. "They're real old-timers at that time, no one ever told me or nny- have another X-ray soon and that-the place. 1 used to see them shaking down one else I know that asbestos could lines they'd already-taken showed some the dust collectors. Why, the stuff was liarm you. Why, I can remember some thing wrong. I think he said it was so thick on them you couldn't hardl) of our supervisors saying it not only some enlarged tissues down there. make mu their hair or faces. 1 remem wouldn't hurt you hut was gooif for When he told me that', T rememlH-red ber Tom sometimes wore a mask. Ii you! They evert used to tell us you something funny that )iap|iened hack i'i a real mask, though. It was one could ent it. The)- were saying that in tJie last part of 1970. I'd hurt my in those gair/A- ones, like you See them right .up till August, when all of a hack, and. the company had sent me wearing in hospitals on the TV?' Belcher was a floral", licavwt man sudden we have, to wear respirators : First thing [ heard about my X-rays to the Medical and Surgical Clinic, which shipped, me_ovcr to the M<nh~r in his late forties, ami as Yandle, Peek, ftwiycon Jtlie ninth of February, when ! Frances Hospital for some X-rays^ and 1 stood talking with hhn in the from yard it was obvious that hi *1) ft* Hurst called me in andsiidThcy didn't show up anything wrong. He -ATfrrthey toolTfifirX^rays, 1 was It iirg in my bed \vlten a nurse came into the. - '*Vr-`.*> . '. amfle,. Peekj'and I. left, wc drove' mnu will B Sc rli|lnm!;for?a ininuttV.*n!' then '*** tin State Highway 14 and stopped 4` asked jiu-" if I teas tliere for- my* fac'k nr fur luv lungs. I toW her I ?fpVgnina't' Ray Hicks's (dace. His mother nunc in. the'door and told Yandle that Itcro fair my hack, and site shook her V^-^f'Rar had crime and gone since wc were lead and said tliat that was odd, ho w there before hut that she was prom tlk*iv sure was something wrong sure we could find trim at the service statkin down hy the four corners in a.... uty lungs." At tli-lt point, ! said goodhyc to Radv Hawkins. A few minutes Later, Yandk* m Thomas *nd walked up a tinvtwaj' toward the house. 'IV driveway crossed spotted Hicks's car at the service sta tion, and when I drew up beside it he t deep culvert by the nnihidr, and on' the <uher sale *>f tbe-culvert was a large climbed out tn get him. Hicks, a tall, thin, handsome, pale man in hit early tank full of channel catfish, which an thinks, got into the hack feat with Peek > delicacy in that part of Texas. Two and Yandle got in front with me, and children, armed with long-handled dip we spent a few minutes chatting. Hicks nets, were trying to catch a pair of told rite that he had gone tn wotk at thein-for a customer wlm had stripped the Tyler plant on April 30,1962, and off to buy his supper. The catfish were had worked there until the factory was Hirpriangly agile, and the children shut down. "That makes nine years were having a lot of fun hut not-much and ten months,- and I never wore a luck. When Hubert Thomas strolled respirator except for the last sue montiis aver to see if they needed a land, I I was.on the job," he said. "I never introduced myself to him, and wc stood knew it was dangerous to work with talking for fume time beside the tank. He told me that he had gone to work | asbestos until 'last summer, when Dr. Grant came down. He told us it was the 1'yler plant in October of 1961, and he had stayed on until the factory was shut down. "We're all kind of worried about what's going to happen to sis'? he said quietly. "Especially those jof us that's got a lot of years in that place. Nobody's told me anything about r medical examination yet, which i be a good sign, hut l Can tell .you irunething for sure. I'm so 1tortwinded these days it's ridiculous. I can't even walk from the tank hero to nay house without getting out of breath. Why, I not only have to snip a couple of rimes to get it hack but sometimes I have to sit right down on the ground! '* I asked Thomas-if he had ever worn a- respirator and if anyone had ever told him before I)r. Gram's visit that asbes tos was dangerous to work with. He shook liis head. "I never wore a respirator until Last summer," lie re plied. "And nobody ever said to me that the stuff could hurt you. No--tome to think of h, that ain't right. Tlicrc was a roan who told me asbestos was dan gerous. That was Mr. McMillan, wIki was plant manager In-fore Van Home. Way iiack, wlu-n I first went to work there, he told me the stuff could lie liarmful. lie never said to wear a mask; though, so I didn't. I got to respect that man, because no body else from Pittsburgh Corning was ' - that honest with me. But it's fun- ain't it: l mean, Mr. McMillan knew it was dangerous, and he died of cancer himself not long ago, hut hr never said to wear a mask. So I didn't. None of us did." It was growing dark, ami when liaaardous, but he said you didn't get any symptoms in less than ten or fifteen year*." I asked Hicks how he. felt, and he said that he felt pretty good--that, un like a Jot of his friends from the'plant, he wasn't experiencing any short-wind edness. "Dr. Hum took X-rays of me in August of 1971, but I never heard from him, so I guess that means I'm C).K.," he added... "Hey, why don't you tell us what Van Home told you when he called you in last month," Yandle said, with a smile. . "Oh, that," Hicks sail! with a sheep ish grin. "Why don't you guys lay off that?" Hicks then shook his head and smiled ruefully at roc. "Well, Van Home called me into Iris office jilst be fore the place shut down," he said. "He told tnc a report on my X-rays indi cated that there was a little spot on the lower lobe-nf ihy left lu'rig, opd Tit said I'd better stop smoking. I told him I'd never smoked in my lift--except-ci gars. So he asked ine if I drank n lot of milk." When Hicks said this, Yandle' began to chuckle. Tllen, joined by Peck, who liad broken into a guffaw, both men leaned hack in their scats and gave way to gales of laughter. "And wliat did you tell him? asked Yandle, making a vain attempt to stifle his laughter. "I told him I drank a little milk now and then," Hicks said. "TTtai's tinsmith, too. I don't drink all that gch;mfl)c." . . _____ . `Y\`little" hit? " said Peek, who was suddenly overtaken In nuntlier parosysrit of mirth. "Just a iittle hit:" "And what did Van Horne say when you told him that:" Yandle cried, still laughing. Hicks glancvtl at me, hilt he Itad be gun laughing himself now, and sudden ly he doubled over as tlie mirth hub- hied out of him. "Van Horiie told me I had a calcium deposit in my lungs and said I piusr he drinking too much milk"-- . At thft point, Hicks broke down conipletely, and I began to laugh my self. For some moments the four of us sat 'rocking with Laughter, unable to speak; then Hicks straightened up and managed-to get partial -control of him-' self. "I walked out of there real mad," he said. "But when I -told my friends hack on the floor, all they did was laugh, and tiiey'vc been ribbing me ever-since." "But, Ray, wc was worried about you!" Yandle protested. "Wc was worried about you tn) account of all that milk you've been drinking." This comment started everybody laughing again, and we were soil laughing when we climbed' out"'of tlie car, a few minutes Later. I thanked Yandle for all his .help, shook hands with each of them, and hade them fare well and good luck. Then I got hack into the car and started fur Tyler. As I drove -away, i caught a glimpse of Yandle, Peck, and Hicks in the rear view mirror. There they were, in front of the filling -station, with their arms around each other's shoulders and their (wads .thrown K-tck--three Texans standing beneath the stars of the im mense night sky and laughing to beat die band. IN the morning, I ate breakfast, paid my Mil, and checked out of the motel. I was pLinning to drop by tlie Medical liJfd Surgical Clinic to ask the doctors there why none iif tlie men who had come .to them with pulmonary problems had been told that the trouble' might be tlie -result of the place they were working arid -what thev were iululiug 'tut the job. Souu- of the men I had spoken with lutd heen fold they lead brmiehnis, and others had been told they had emphysema, brit none of the doetors at the clinic, as far as I could make mu, had ever odd thi-ut they were suffering from a-du-sm-ds, which is, of course,' what was afflicting many of them, and was the reason they weree\|K-iieucing'such difficulty in-hreath-' inS--Jdowcu-r. nffL-r <ini:o' kluntl the, wheel of my iar fora few moments I