Johns-Manville, A Condensation of Environmental Facts on Asbestos and Health, Customer Seminars (1974)

A 45-page "Condensation of Environmental Facts on Asbestos and Health," prepared in March 1974 by J-M's Environmental Affairs Department from a series of seminars the company gave its customers. It covers asbestos diseases, fiber types, smoking, the OSHA standards and labeling rules, and J-M's fiber handling and dust control systems. It quotes J-M's policy "to equip our plants for the highest degree of personal safety ... provided it is technically possible and economically feasible to do so," and otherwise to "discontinue a particular operation rather than knowingly endanger the health or life expectancy of a single employee."

What it shows

The seminar told customers that J-M had "led the industry" for 50 years in solving asbestos health problems and that, through a lack of knowledge shared by medicine, labor and government, "the health of some employees had been unknowingly endangered in the past." It said J-M believed it was "their responsibility" to make customers and their employees "aware of potential hazards and how to control them." It also told them that mesothelioma "is not caused solely by asbestos" and stressed smoking as a cause of lung cancer. A 1977 J-M memo says about 800 people attended these seminars, held from about September 1973 to mid-1974 (Cooper to Kotin). Earlier entries record J-M leaving caution labels off products for Canada (1965).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

At a customer seminar on asbestos and health in March 1974, J-M indicated that it is J-M's policy to equip its plants for the highest degree of personal safety, provided it is technically possible and economically feasible. When this is not possible, J-M will discontinue a particular operation rather than endanger the health of an employee. J-M also believes that it is responsible for telling its customers and its employees about the potential hazards of asbestos and how to control them.

Related documents

• W. E. Hodgson to S. Lane and C. H. Jensen to E. C. Lindstrom on Leaving Caution Labels Off Shipments to Canada (1965)
• Johns-Manville Correspondence on Describing Marinite to the American Medical Association (1948)