Lois Gaul's Manville Memo on 1021 Answers to Industrial Health and Safety Problems (1984)

A one-page Manville internal memo of September 24, 1984, from L. Gaul to four colleagues, on 1021 Answers to Industrial Health and Safety Problems, edited by Jack E. Weiss and published in 1943 by Occupational Hazards, Inc. She notes that the book's answer on asbestosis places exposure in "fabricating plants where fireproof textiles, brake linings, insulation, etc. are made," with "no mention of any hazard to end users," and that it gives a U.S. Public Health Service limit of 5 million particles per cubic foot for free silica or asbestos.

What it shows

Gaul adds that a table in the book shows six states, including California, recommending a limit of 5 million particles for asbestos in 1943, and South Carolina 15. The book's list of hazards for shipbuilding and shipyard workers did not include asbestos dust; for sound and heat insulation workers it gave inorganic dust with and without free silica. The memo is one of a series written at Manville in the mid-1980s, while the company was defending asbestos lawsuits, recording what early books said about asbestos, including who was thought to be exposed and what dust limits were then in use (see Threshold Limit Value (TLV)).