Johns-Manville Environmental Health Task Force Policy Committee Minutes, December 1968 (1968)

Three pages of minutes, signed by F. J. (Jack) Solon, Jr., of the December 17, 1968, meeting of the Policy Committee of J-M's Environmental Health Task Force, its senior group on asbestos and health. Under "Caution Label on Asbestos Bags," Solon reported "the adverse reaction in the U.K." to caution labels on J-M's overseas fiber shipments, and "It was agreed we would use a caution lable only on domestic shipments (U.S. and Canada)." Overseas customers would get a leaflet "pointing up good practices in handling fibre," which president C. B. Burnett suggested be sent each year by registered mail, and Burnett asked general counsel Herbert Ball to look into other countries' rules on warning labels.

What it shows

The minutes cover much more of J-M's response to the asbestos health question. Dr. George Wright, J-M's medical consultant, proposed studying where asbestos fiber had gone over 35 years and whether public exposure had grown with production. Solon spoke of working with Dr. Irving Selikoff of Mount Sinai "to get positive articles on asbestos health" in magazines such as Business Week, and of a "contact team" ready to meet worried groups. After Somerset Hospital doctors publicly asked for Manville plant health records, the plant manager was to be told "not to honor any such request" until he had checked with Industrial Relations (Jackson to Anderson, November 1968). The label decision led to the legal studies that followed (Standel's report, March 1969; Breese's memos to Ball), and J-M later confirmed that overseas shipments should carry no caution labels (correspondence with Eternit, 1969–1970).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Minutes from the Policy Committee Meeting, Environmental Health Task Force, 12/17/68. In light of the UK's adverse reaction to the labelling of fiber bags, it was agreed that J-M would use a caution label only on domestic shipments (U.S. and Canada). For overseas customers, a leaflet would be prepared pointing out good practices in handling fiber.

Related documents

• Correspondence on Canadian Johns-Manville's Caution Label for Asbestos Fiber Bags and the British Objections (1968–1969)
• Warren Max Deutsch to K. V. Lindell on the Caution Statement for Chrysotile Fiber Bags (1968)
• J. R. M. Hutcheson to N. W. Hendry on a Caution Label for Asbestos Fiber Bags (1968)