Chronology of Publications on Asbestos and Disease, Attorney Work Product List and Draft (1988)

A 192-page "Chronology of Publications on Asbestos and Disease," each page marked "Privileged Attorney Work Product," listing year by year the medical, government, insurance and trade publications that touched on asbestos and health. The first 71 pages are a list dated December 8, 1988, covering 1940 to 1965, one citation per entry with handwritten check marks and library numbers. The remaining 121 pages, turned sideways, are an earlier and fuller draft (its draft dates are mostly overwritten; one reads January 30, 1987; "* = Changes since last draft") covering the 1880s to 1939, with columns for each publication's description and the compilers' comments.

What it shows

The draft's comments show what the compilers were looking for: the earliest notice of the hazard in print. Of the British Chief Inspector of Factories' report for 1898 they write that it "Appears to be the first published mention of a health hazard to asbestos workers," and of Dr. Montague Murray's 1906 testimony, "First case report of disease in an asbestos worker." Entries for the 1930s include the U.S. Public Health Service's 1938 study of the North Carolina asbestos textile industry and reports of the asbestosis suits against Johns-Manville in the federal court in Chicago. A list like this was the kind of reference defense lawyers used in asbestos suits, where the question of when the hazard was known, or could have been known, was central. The file does not say who compiled it; a copy of the 1988 list is indexed among Johns-Manville's own archived papers, and the old research base recorded it as J-M's.

About this copy

The work-product marking is not treated as a bar to publication (owner's ruling on J-M papers, 2026-11-10). Pages 72 to 192 are scanned sideways.