Dr. E. D. Merrill to C. L. Sheckler on Work Restrictions for Returning Employees (1958)

A one-page confidential memo of January 24, 1958, from Dr. E. D. Merrill of the Medical Department at Johns-Manville's Manville, New Jersey, plant to C. L. Sheckler of the Safety Department. It adopts Sheckler's procedure for workers coming back after an illness whom the doctors wanted kept to areas "where dust counts are within acceptable safe limits": the pink, green and yellow copies of the medical report would be stamped "Contact C. L. Sheckler regarding work area prior to return to work." The return date would be put off several days to give Sheckler time to act, and the step would supplement the plant's "periodic conferences."

What it shows

By 1958 the Manville plant's doctors were regularly finding workers who should not go back to dusty jobs, and routing those cases through the Safety Department before they returned. The memo is about where such men would work; it says nothing about what the men themselves were told of their condition. Dr. Merrill later testified about the plant's practice on telling employees their X-ray results (his testimony); the conferences are described in the meeting that set up the new X-ray review procedure.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

Johns-Manville's own chronology of what the company knew describes this document as follows:

Dr. E.D. Merrill notifies C.L. Sheckler, 1/24/58, that Sheckler's new recommended procedures regarding work restrictions are approved. Hereinafter, when the Medical Department recommends that an employee returning to work after an illness be restricted to a work area where counts are within acceptable safe limits, the Medical Department will write or stamp on the pink, green, and yellow copies of the "medical report" the following: "Contact C.L. Sheckler regarding work area prior to return to work." This procedure will supplement but not replace the purposes achieved by the periodic conferences.

Related documents

• Transcript of a J-M Medical Meeting at Manville on Conferences before Recording X-Ray Diagnoses (1957)
• Deposition of Dr. Edwin D. Merrill on Holding Back Abnormal Chest X-Rays at Manville (1979)