Asbestos Information Association Executive Committee Minutes on Expert Witnesses and the Califano Letter (1978)

Four pages of minutes of the Executive Committee of the Asbestos Information Association/North America, meeting in Arlington, Virginia, on December 12, 1978, signed by its executive director, B. J. Pigg. Members present came from CertainTeed, Nicolet, Raybestos-Manhattan, Johns-Manville (Dimitry Poutiatine), Union Carbide and Supradur. The committee agreed to prepare an open letter to Joseph Califano, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, enclosing Dr. Hans Weill's critique of a government paper estimating how much cancer is caused by work. Under the "Legal Research Program," Guy Gabrielson of Nicolet reported that Ms. Carey Gross "had recently interviewed eleven additional physicians on the west coast as potential expert medical witnesses," and the committee agreed that publishing Dr. Philip Enterline's medical "state of the art" document should be left to Enterline.

What it shows

The minutes show the trade association working on several fronts at once: following federal rules at OSHA, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation, answering a government study of occupational cancer, planning for an OSHA hearing on a stricter asbestos standard, and approving a memo to build "an asbestos constituency by state and congressional district." Alongside this, its legal research program was lining up medical expert witnesses for asbestos lawsuits. See also the January 1979 memo on the same witness search (Motley #729) and the next meeting's minutes (Motley #730).

In Johns-Manville's index

Johns-Manville's legal department indexed the Motley 1,000 in 1984. Its index describes this document as follows:

AIA Meeting Minutes, 12/12/78 - Executive Committee. The minutes indicate that an open letter to HEW's Secretary Califano will be prepared and presented for approval at the December 13 meeting of directors. G. Gabrielson states that Carey Gross has recently interviewed 11 additional physicians on the West Coast as potential medical expert witnesses. Gabrielson also discusses Dr. Enterline's medical state of the art document and states that he will respond to Dr. Enterline's inquiry regarding its publication. (AIA decided that publication should be left to Dr. Enterline's discretion.)

Related documents

• Guy G. Gabrielson, Jr. to the Asbestos Information Association Legal Research Committee on State of the Medical Art Witnesses (1979)
• Asbestos Information Association Executive Committee Minutes on Califano, Smoking and Expert Witnesses (1979)

About this copy

This is document 728 of the Motley 1,000, from the set the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust's records facility certified as true copies, pages CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-003133 to CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-003136.