Fred L. Pundsack's Statement on Asbestos Warning Labels in the Labor Department Hearing Transcript (1972)

Seven pages (306 to 312) of the official transcript of the U.S. Department of Labor's 1972 hearing on a permanent asbestos standard, recording the statement of Dr. Fred L. Pundsack, Johns-Manville's vice president for research and development. He told the hearing that the proposed warning labels, if adopted, "will in our opinion destroy large amounts of the industry and eliminate thousands of jobs," and called the Advisory Committee's label, "May cause asbestosis and cancer," "unnecessarily frightening and alarming." He proposed no label at all for products with asbestos "locked in place" by cement or plastics, and a caution label for loose fiber and friable insulation saying only that inhaling asbestos "in excessive quantities over long periods of time may be harmful."

What it shows

This is the court reporter's record of the testimony as it was read at the hearing. The typed statement Pundsack submitted, with his follow-up letter to the hearing examiner, is published as Pundsack's written testimony, which also covers the rest of the day's transcript. The two read almost word for word alike. Here, as in the written version, Pundsack says J-M knew "of not one single case of asbestos related disease" from installing or using asbestos-cement pipe, predicts that a cancer label would make that industry "cease to exist within 2 or 4 years," and ends with the label of "Figure 1."

About this copy

The pages are marked as plaintiff's exhibit P-828 and come from the Motley 1,000 set of J-M documents. The scan is faint in places.