H. M. Jackson to Dr. Lewis J. Cralley on Sending Study Results to Workers' Doctors (1969)

A two-page letter of April 23, 1969, headed "Asbestos Industry Study," from H. M. Jackson, J-M's director of industrial relations, to Dr. Lewis J. Cralley of the U.S. Public Health Service's occupational health program in Cincinnati. Cralley had told Jackson that "only significant data" from the government's health study of asbestos workers would be sent to the personal physicians named by participating J-M employees. Citing New Jersey workmen's compensation practice, where claims for occupational disease were being filed in numbers whether or not there was X-ray evidence or measurable disability, Jackson wrote that J-M was alert to the effect of information sent unasked to an employee's own doctor. He asked how X-rays would be classified, what counted as "significant data," and whether the government's doctors would be available to explain their findings at compensation hearings.

What it shows

Jackson urged the Division of Occupational Health to reconsider its policy against giving findings to company doctors. That policy "may have had some validity years ago," he wrote, but at a company with a health counseling program like J-M's, the plant physician had "a much more intimate and effective role as health counselor than do the vast majority of family doctors." He added that J-M did not yet include lung function tests in its own periodic examinations, and wanted the definition of "significant data" settled before the June meeting of the Asbestos Textile Institute. The letter carries forward the concern J-M's headquarters had shown about outside requests for medical information (Jackson to Anderson, November 1968).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Letter from Jackson to Lewis J. Cralley, M.D., National Center for Urban-Industrial Health, Cincinnati, Ohio, dated 4/23/69 concerning USPHS asbestos industry study. Jackson is concerned after having been advised by Cralley that "significant data" would be forwarded to the personal physician indicated by participating J-M employees.

Jackson states that because of the anomalies of New Jersey Worker's Compensation law and the "mass filing of claims for occupational disease whether or not there is x-ray evidence or any measurably pulmonary disability," J-M is alert to the implications of information forwarded "gratuitously" to an employee's personal physician. Jackson wants to know what X-ray classification method is to be employed, and precisely what constitutes "significant data," as well as whether the U.S. Public Health Service interpreting physicians would be available to explain and substantiate their findings in worker's compensation hearings.

He asked that the Division "reconsider its policy prohibiting the dissemination of findings and interpretations to company-related physicians. "This policy may have had some validity years ago, but in companies with a health-counselling program of the stature of ours, the plant physician has on a continuing basis a much more intimate and effective role as health counselor than do the vast majority of family doctors." Jackson noted that J-M did not then include PFTs as part of its regular health exams and would be interested in the results of the USPHS study since it would include such analyses. Jackson urged clarification of the definition of "significant data" prior to the next meeting of the ATI.

Related documents

• Johns-Manville Environmental Health Task Force Policy Committee Minutes, February 1969 (1969)