Edmund M. Fenner, U.S. Regulations for Control of Asbestos Exposure, New York Academy of Sciences Science Week (1978)

A 14-page typescript of a talk by Edmund M. Fenner, vice president and director of environmental services in Johns-Manville Sales Corporation's Health, Safety and Environment Department, filed behind the program cover of the New York Academy of Sciences' "Science Week," June 21-30, 1978, on "The Scientific Basis for the Public Control of Environmental Health Hazards." Speaking "as a technical person viewing the controls from the standpoint of industry," Fenner reviews the OSHA asbestos standard and the EPA's asbestos emission, waste and water rules. He calls monitoring and medical examinations the two "controversial" parts of the OSHA standard.

What it shows

Fenner quotes J-M's biostatistician Dr. Gerald R. Chase that, with the current monitoring method, "readings well above 1.5 F/cc will predictably be found with readings well below 0.5 F/cc" in simultaneous samples. He proposes an action level below which repeat medical examinations would not be required, a schedule of examinations in the fourth, sixth, eighth and tenth years and annually after that, and a separate construction standard based on industry work practices. He suggests the medical records be kept by clinics or by NIOSH, "but not by the employer." He closes that "a zero concentration of airborne asbestos is a rarity, if not an impossibility," and that better measurement does not mean a greater hazard. The same Science Week panel heard Raybestos-Manhattan's medical director (Lewinsohn's paper). An earlier Fenner paper is his 1969 memo on labeling insulation products.