John A. McKinney's Memo on His Meeting with Dr. Irving Selikoff (1980)

A two-page memo to file of February 4, 1980, from John A. McKinney, Johns-Manville's chairman, copied to Dr. Paul Kotin and Earl Parker, on a meeting of more than two hours with Dr. Irving Selikoff after a board meeting on February 1. McKinney called the meeting "very cordial" but disappointing. He told Selikoff that a projection of 20,000 asbestos-related deaths a year for the next 40 years was "absolute nonsense," and that the two-fiber standard was satisfactory but could not be set below one fiber per cc, because meeting it would require a goal of half a fiber, "about as low as we can measure with any degree of confidence."

What it shows

McKinney showed Selikoff press clippings about a JAMA article and told him such publicity could have "a tremendously adverse affect on customers" and that the industry might be regulated out of existence "by sensationalism." Selikoff agreed to try to work out written positions he could support publicly. McKinney then told him that "extreme views and expressions by some of the scientists involved with the asbestos issue are pushing us to the point where we may have no alternative but attempt to destroy the credibility of such scientists," possibly by starting litigation that would put them on the witness stand. In 1982 Manville drafted a letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services attacking Selikoff's own work and credentials (draft letter to Richard Schweiker, 1982).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Memorandum to file from John McKinney, cc: Paul Kotin, 2/4/80, re meeting with Dr. Selikoff, 2/1/80. The meeting, described as "cordial," focused on discussion of the Califano statistics (predicting the future incidence of asbestos-related disease) and on the appropriate safe level of exposure. McKinney advocated retention of a 2 f/cc standard, but agreed that J-M could achieve a lower level. "I told him that in our opinion it could not be placed lower than l f/cc, because in order to meet that standard, it is necessary to have a goal of 1/2 f/cc and that is about as low as we can measure with any degree of confidence."

McKinney discussed with Selikoff the harm caused by wide scale media treatment of a JAMA article. "I pointed out to him that this is the type of publicity which can have a tremendously adverse affect [sic] on customers and that if this sort of nonsense continues, the industry would be 'regulated' out of existence by sensationalism rather than by regulation based upon scientific data." Selikoff agreed to work with J-M in arriving at written positions which Selikoff would then support publicly "Building on some comments which he made about Tony Robbins, I did get an opportunity to tell Dr. Selikoff that extreme views and expressions by some of the scientists involved with the asbestos issue are pushing us to the point where we may have no alternative but attempt to destroy the credibility of such scientists. I told him, for example, it was not beyond the realm of possibility that we would find a way to begin litigation involving the issues raised by such scientists, and therefore, providing ourselves with an opportunity to place them on the witness stand subject to the same sort of interrogation which he had experienced in the Reserve Mining case."