Paul Kotin to Hilton Lewinsohn Enclosing His Toronto Seminar Statement on Asbestos (1977)

A short cover letter of May 4, 1977, from Dr. Paul Kotin, Johns-Manville's senior vice president for health, safety and environment, to Dr. Hilton Lewinsohn, corporate medical director of Raybestos-Manhattan, enclosing his "Statement of Concern" to a public seminar on asbestos held by the University of Toronto's Institute for Environmental Studies on March 15, 1977. Kotin wrote that "there can be no doubt" that occupational exposure had been associated with asbestosis and an increased risk of mesothelioma and bronchogenic cancer, and that lung cancer was "virtually limited to workers who smoke cigarettes." He set out the duties of management toward past, present and future workers. The five-page statement appears twice.

What it shows

Speaking as an industry spokesman, Kotin said that for the past management has "the obligation to provide compensation to those workers who have been injured," and for the present it must assume "responsibility for generating no new cases of disease." He listed household contacts, people living near mills and factories, and insulation and construction workers among those found to have asbestos disease. He closed: "Because of what we know now, failure to comply would make industry truly culpable."

In Johns-Manville's index

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

Dr. Paul Kotin (Medical Director, J-M) letter to Dr. H.C. Lewinsohn, 5/4/77, enclosing the script of Dr. Kotin's presentation at the March 1977 seminar sponsored by the University of Toronto Institute for Environmental Studies. Dr. Kotin discusses asbestos-related disease and management's responsibility to provide an acceptable work environment.

Duplicate of Motley Document #619.

About this copy

These are documents 619 and 622 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-002089 to CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-002099.