I. H. Weaver to J. H. Marsh on the NIOSH Mortality Study of Raybestos-Manhattan Workers (1977)

A one-page Raybestos-Manhattan memo of December 2, 1977, from I. H. Weaver at the company's plant in Manheim, Pennsylvania, to J. H. Marsh, reviewing Cynthia Robinson's paper on deaths among workers at an asbestos textile, friction and packing plant. Weaver accepted the paper's figures on asbestos use, which matched what he had given the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), but said NIOSH had "stretched things" in using the results "to implicate chrysotile" as a cause of mesothelioma. With "only 17 meso. cases in a cohort of 3277," he thought it "quite possible, even probable, all 17 were exposed to crocidolite and/or amosite." He called NIOSH "extremely remiss" for not checking, saying it showed "a lack of desire to establish the true facts."

What it shows

Weaver wrote that the question "should be easy to check if we can get names from NIOSH, as our employment records probably show these people to have worked with or near exposures other than chrysotile." He also faulted the study for not relating deaths to dose, though "many of the deaths probably were related to very high exposures." The memo shows the company answering a government study of its own workers by pointing to the small amounts of amosite and crocidolite it had used. The paper itself and Robinson's covering letter are Motley Document 720.

In Johns-Manville's index

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

I.H. Weaver memo to J.H. Marsh, 12/2/77, entitled "Review of Robinson Paper on Mortality Patterns 1940 - 1975." Weaver does not agree with the results which implicate chrysotile as a cause of mesothelioma. "With only 17 meso. cases in a cohort of 3,277, or barely 1/2%, it is quite possible, even probable, all 17 were exposed to crocidolite and/or amosite." This should be investigated and Weaver considers NIOSH extremely remiss in failing to investigate this. "As far as I'm concerned it indicates a lack of desire to establish the true facts and constitutes another attempt to back up a preconceived notion concerning an association between chrysotile exposure and mesothelioma." Another deficiency of the study noted by Weaver is the failure to relate adverse health effects to dosage. (See Motley Document #720.)

Related documents

• Cynthia Robinson, Richard Lemen and Joseph K. Wagoner, Mortality Patterns Among Asbestos Textile, Friction and Packing Workers, Sent to J. H. Marsh (1977)

About this copy

This is document 709 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-002546 to CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-002546.