Dr. Kenneth W. Smith's Industrial Health Talk at the J-M Management Information Session (1961)

The text of the industrial health talk Dr. Kenneth W. Smith, J-M's medical director, gave to J-M headquarters and division managers at the Hotel Biltmore in New York on October 17, 1961, sent to all Industrial Relations Managers by C. W. Hite on November 16. Smith asked whether management had the right "to sell a product which will be injurious to the user" or "to squander stockholders' money" on unnecessary compensation claims, and answered "an emphatic NO!" He used the history of J-M's Lompoc, California diatomaceous earth plant as a warning to the rest of the company.

What it shows

Smith's account of Lompoc ran from a 1930 state health report recommending dust control, through 1935 X-rays by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company showing 9% of workers with occupational lung disease and a 1945 warning from Dr. A. J. Lanza, to dust controls by 1950 that "were too little and too late." "We saw the signs," he said, "but we did not appreciate their full importance," and "the emphasis was primarily on production and the profit picture," until a 1952 state order, press coverage headed "Death By Dust," and a seven-month strike. He then asked how many other J-M locations had the same problems, and: "Can we by our method of working, by our direction and decisions, continue to impair the health of men and women, to shorten their lives by our actions?" He also cited a product sold without a warning label that injured a customer, and said labels should reflect known hazards. The talk shows J-M's medical director telling senior management in 1961 that the company had known of a dust hazard for two decades before acting on it.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

Johns-Manville's own chronology of what the company knew describes this document as follows:

During a presentation given on 10/17/61 to J-M General Headquarters and Division management personnel, Dr. Smith discusses J-M's responsibility for the health of its workers and purchasers of products. Dr. Smith points out the necessity of applying what was learned from Lompoc to other plants. Smith poses the question, "can we . . . continue to impair the health of men and women to shorten their lives by our actions?"