Dr. William R. Paul to E. J. Riley on the Marrero Medical Program (1977)

A one-page memo of December 2, 1977, from Dr. W. R. Paul, J-M's corporate medical director, to E. J. Riley at the Marrero, Louisiana, plant, after a visit on November 16. Housekeeping was excellent and fiber counts "well below the TLV," but "the medical program has deficiencies": many sputum samples for the cancer screening came back unsatisfactory, the clinic's X-ray machine was "old and incapable of producing high KV," and Paul doubted the accuracy of the lung function machine.

What it shows

Paul notes that 80 percent or more of the plant's 80 hourly workers had 25 or more years of service, that "the majority are illiterate," and that the screening should be "rigidly pursued" with "an elderly workforce, many of whom have evidence of occupational disease." The memo is a record that J-M's medical chief knew the Marrero workforce was largely sick with occupational disease and that the plant's tests were not reliable.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Dr. Paul in a memorandum to Riley (Marrero), 12/2/77, complains about Marrero's medical program. The sputum cytology program leaves a lot to be desired. A large percentage of the specimens are returned as unsatisfactory. The X-ray machine is old and not capable of taking good quality X-rays, and, with respect to the pulmonary function machine, Dr. Paul doubts whether the results are accurate.