Joe Goldfield to A. C. Smith, Observations and Recommendations from a Trip to Turner Brothers (1966)

A three-page memo of March 21, 1966, from Joe Goldfield of J-M's Research and Engineering Center to A. C. Smith, setting out his observations and recommendations after visiting Turner Brothers Asbestos Co. in England. He found no health committees at J-M "with the stature of the health committee in Turner Bros.," thought the doctor in J-M plants "plays a rather passive role," called the Greenburg-Smith impinger method "laborious and inaccurate," and noted that at Turner Brothers asbestos fiber "is treated as a dangerous material that must be handled in sealed systems and containers. The same is not completely true in JM plants."

What it shows

Goldfield recommended a high-level J-M health committee, health committees in every plant, an industry research council to study dust counting, the relation of dust levels to lung damage and the "relation of asbestos exposure to lung cancer," and that "asbestos fibres be treated as a harmful material in all our plants." He wrote that J-M had the know-how to solve its problems and that it was "a challenge to management" to use it. J-M's health staff answered him point by point in May and rejected a separate health committee (reply to Hite and Jackson, 1966).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Memorandum from Joe Goldfield (D.P.E. Finderne) to A.C. Smith, H.Q. General Engineer, 3/21/66. The memorandum sets forth Goldfield's observations and recommendations based on a trip he had made to Turner Brothers Asbestos Company, Ltd. in England. Goldfield apparently returned from this trip greatly impressed by what he had been shown at Turner Brothers concerning efforts to investigate the asbestos health risk through research and through monitoring of employees as well as to measure and reduce dust levels.

Related documents

• Joe Goldfield to J. A. Vermeulen, Report of a Trip to Turner Brothers Asbestos Co. on Health Problems (1966)