Walter Hesse of Johns-Manville, Statement on Asbestos in Insulation Materials at the Labor Department Hearing (1972)

A written statement by Walter Hesse, manager of research and development for Johns-Manville's industrial insulations, filed at the U.S. Department of Labor's March 1972 hearing on a permanent asbestos standard, with the Department's 1978 certificate of a true copy and a transcript cover page. Hesse traced the makeup of American insulation from the 1930s, when high-temperature products such as 85% magnesia held 14 to 77 percent asbestos by weight, "mine" cements were practically 100 percent asbestos, and low-pressure products about 75 percent. He concluded that "the amount of asbestos dust to which insulation workers are exposed has decreased substantially between the years of 1945 and 1970," so that workers with twenty or fewer years in the trade had "significantly less exposure" than older ones.

What it shows

The statement is a Johns-Manville account of how much asbestos went into the insulation that workers handled each decade, with tables of fiber content and market share. It reports that about 16,600 tons of asbestos fiber went into insulation in 1930 and 16,100 tons in 1965, as fiber glass took over much of the market. It is probably the exhibit "Change in Time Period of Insulation Materials" that Matthew Swetonic put into the record (Motley #314).

In Johns-Manville's index

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

Statement of Walter Hesse (Manager of Research and Development, J-M Industrial Insulations) at the Goldberg Hearings on 3/16/72. Hesse discusses the changing composition of insulation materials throughout the years. He states that the evidence indicates that the amount of asbestos dust to which insulation workers are exposed has decreased substantially between the years of 1945 and 1970. Those insulation workers with 20 or fewer years of employment have had significantly less exposure to asbestos dust than their older working companions.

Related documents

• Matthew M. Swetonic of Johns-Manville and the Asbestos Information Association, Testimony Against the Two-Fiber Standard and Warning Labels (1972)

About this copy

This is document 316 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-001595 to CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-001603.