Dr. Kenneth W. Smith to Boyd Mulder on Telling Waukegan Employees Their Examination Results (1954)

A one-page confidential memo of September 29, 1954, from Dr. Kenneth W. Smith, Johns-Manville's medical director, to Boyd Mulder at the Waukegan, Illinois, plant. "As I have indicated on previous occasions," Smith wrote, "physicians in industry have a moral and legal responsibility to give to employees the results of their physical examination and any advice pertaining thereto," and this should be undertaken "immediately" at Waukegan. He described the procedure used at Lompoc: when the doctor found an employee should no longer work in dust, the work area was investigated, and after thirty days the doctor, managers and supervisor met with the man to explain the restriction and any change of job.

What it shows

The memo came less than three weeks after a union doctor reported that Waukegan workers were not told their chest X-ray results (Abrams's letters). Smith said the Lompoc procedure had worked "satisfactorily" for the company, the union and the employees.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

In a memorandum to Boyd Mulder (Waukegan) dated 9/29/54, Dr. Kenneth Smith discusses the development of a procedure for informing employees about physical exam results and work restrictions. Dr. Smith says that "[a]s I have indicated on previous occasions, physicians have a moral and legal responsibility to give employees the results of their physical examinations and any advice thereto." He states that this should be undertaken immediately at the Waukegan plant. Dr. Smith recommends that Waukegan develop a disclosure procedure similar to Lompoc's, which he says has been successful for J-M, the union and the employees. Dr. Smith is also going to send Mulder some new forms which can be retained by the individual employee and used to record the results of each physical exam.