Document yk9VBK4g2a9ybop9J3qNq1gX4

FILE NAME: Kohler (KOH) DATE: 0000 DOC#: KOH021 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: BC Notes Kohler Kohler was one of the early members of the National Safety Council (1914-1999). Based in Chicago, NSC made abundant information available for corporate members, including a monthly periodical, National Safety News, the annual National Safety Congresses, accident prevention manuals and other publications. From the 1930s on, NSC publications carried information on asbestos, under subjects including occupational diseases, air sampling/analysis, recommended limits for exposure to airborne dust exposure, respirators, industrial ventilation, and workers' compensation laws. Lung cancer was first recorded as a possible consequence of asbestos exposure in the National Safety Congress in 1957. More general principles were also discussed, including the importance of worker education and training in the prevention of illness and injury that products can cause. Koehler was also a member of the American Ceramic Society starting 1914. This organization's publication, Ceramic Abstracts, carried numerous abstracts of medical articles on asbestosis in the 1930s and 1940s. Kohler was a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers during the 1930s, when that organization's journal, Mechanical Engineering, carried a number of articles about asbestosis and other occupational dust hazards and their control. Two Kohler officials were recorded in attendance at the proceedings of the conference held by the Industrial Commission of Wisconsin in 1932, Effects of Dusts Upon the Respiratory System. Leading national authorities made presentations, and asbestosis was described. A US government doctor described the first recorded case of asbestosis in an asbestos product user, a maintenance worker at a government hospital who was compensated for disability. The Industrial Health Service of Metropolitan Health Insurance Company listed Koehler as one of Met's policy holders requesting plant surveys and information in 1942. Dr. DM Rowe of Koehler was listed among the attendees of the McIntyre Research Foundation conference in 1960, "Silicosis and Other Industrial Pulmonary Diseases." Dr. Donald Rowe was also a member of the American Occupational Medical Association, the professional association to which company doctors from many large corporations belonged. Even before US government regulation starting in the 1970s, the deadliness of asbestos had bottom-line implications from the standpoint of liability, insurance, and the potential for labor unrest. The lethality of asbestos was well known in medical, industrial, and insurance circles since the 1930s. Koehler has had the resources and expertise since that time to understand the hazards of asbestos to its employees in manufacturing and to its customers in the use o asbestos-containing products. jz_ f l U - l^gOc / <d?-& -^y> Am ^cuyv. ' AA *-J (\rv,{jn S- ')ei/ l(~2^-' /Vft /VWJZ (|<K7 "^ 0?73^ sLr- G ,r?y-r\ ^ k /W ,S ? y /V 7 ' fi l c jO l . os*r-