Dr. Paul Kotin to G. E. Parker on Smoking, Asbestos and Lung Cancer in Employee Presentations (1978)

A one-page memo of September 12, 1978, from Dr. Paul Kotin to G. E. Parker of Johns-Manville on "Asbestos and Cigarette Smoking, and Susceptibility to Lung Cancer." Parker was concerned about the part of J-M's presentation to employees saying "that cigarette smoking converts a nonhazardous level of exposure to asbestos into a hazardous one." Kotin explains that at every presentation employees asked why J-M was eliminating smoking if the 2 f/cc level was acceptable, and "Our response to such a question must be that it is a nonhazardous level but combined with cigarette smoking it can be hazardous."

What it shows

Kotin granted that the statement "might be interpreted as saying that there is no safe level of exposure to asbestos in the presence of cigarette smoking," with "negative implications from the viewpoint of customer purchase and use of asbestos products as well as from the viewpoint of a legal position." He restated J-M's position that asbestos effects are dose-dependent with "clear evidence of a no-adverse effect level," said customers using products in which asbestos is "locked into the product" faced a different situation from plant workers, and recommended that the presentations not be changed. On J-M's smoking program, see the 1977 President's Bulletin and the 1979 Chairman's Bulletin.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Memorandum to G.E. Parker from Paul Kotin, dated 9/12/78, discusses the portion of Parker's presentation to Manville employees which states that cigarette smoking converts a non-hazardous level of exposure to asbestos into a hazardous one. Kotin notes that this comment may be interpreted as saying that there is no safe level of exposure to asbestos in the presence of cigarette smoking. Such a misinterpretation could have negative implications from the viewpoint of both the customer purchaser and user of asbestos products as well as from a legal viewpoint.