Ministry of Defence (Navy), Working with Asbestos (1970)

A Royal Navy safety booklet, "Working with Asbestos," issued by the British Ministry of Defence (Navy) in May 1970 with a foreword by Dr. David Owen, M.P., Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy: "I have asked for this booklet to be prepared so that everyone will be aware of the dangers of working with asbestos." It summarizes the Navy's rules for asbestos work, sorting workers into registered asbestos workers, "neighbourhood" workers and management visitors, and sets out the protection each needed for jobs from sprayed limpet asbestos to lagging and de-lagging. It says the Navy Department had since 1966 cut the asbestos in its ship specifications to "less than one-tenth" of what it had been.

What it shows

The booklet names asbestosis and cancer as the risks, and says that mesothelioma "is mainly caused by exposure to the form of asbestos named crocidolite or 'blue asbestos'," taking 20 to 30 years to develop, and that crocidolite "is no longer being put into ships of the Royal Navy." It warns that workers near asbestos jobs "may be affected" when they have, "without knowing it, breathed in asbestos dust." A table of substitutes reports that amosite pipe and board insulation and sprayed limpet asbestos had been dropped from the specifications. The copy bears an exhibit sticker dated April 12, 1979, and was evidently used in American litigation.