Klaus Robock, Can We Project an Acceptable Standard for Industrial Use of Asbestos? "Absolutely" (1978)

The text of a 14-page talk, with six figures, by Dr. Klaus Robock, a German physicist with the Stiftung Asbest (Asbestos Foundation) in Neuss and the University of Essen, for a panel at the New York Academy of Sciences' Science Week in June 1978. Taking the "Absolutely" side of the question, Robock argued that dust levels had been cut to "2 fibres/ml" or less, and that "excessive cancer risks are only observed in groups of insulation workers and confined to cigarette smokers." He said "there is a dose-response relationship and also a threshold limit value," and that "the 2 fibre/ml value should be kept." Since household exposure ("e.g. by cleaning clothes of asbestos workers") had measured 5 to 30 fibres/ml, he suggested the limit "may be between 2 and 5 fibres/ml."

What it shows

Robock chaired the Dust Measurement Advisory Panel of the Asbestos International Association, the industry's worldwide trade body, and the paper comes from the files of J. H. Marsh of Raybestos-Manhattan. It sets out the industry position of 1978 for a safe level of exposure, resting in part on unpublished results the author said showed "no excessive mesothelioma risk." He also suggested that a fiber in the lung "may act only as an adsorber of carcinogenic substances" such as cigarette smoke, so that "the fibre itself may not necessarily be carcinogenic." Compare the industry's own list of claims it needed to answer, in the Association's papers of late 1978.

In Johns-Manville's index

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

Document entitled "Panel Discussion: Can We Project an Acceptable Standard for Industrial Use of Asbestos? Absolutely," by K. Robeck (a physicist), prepared for the New York Academy of Sciences' Science Week, 6/21-30/78.

About this copy

This is document 710 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-002589 to CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-002602.