Johns-Manville Papers on Worker Health, Pneumoconiosis Counseling and the OSHA Asbestos Standard, a Compilation (1947–1974)

A 352-page compilation of Johns-Manville papers, its cover sheet labeled by hand "Manville chronology documents 1971–1976, list of Waukeegan plant employees, etc., 1971 Health counseling, part 1." Most of the papers date from 1971 to 1973: memos on telling workers with pneumoconiosis about their X-ray findings and restricting their work, lists of "red slip" pneumoconiosis cases at the Waukegan, Illinois, plant with the dates each man was diagnosed and informed, a study of pneumoconiosis and pleural plaques at the Manville, New Jersey, plant, plans for outside studies at Tulane, Mount Sinai and Boston University, J-M's health research reports, and the company's testimony and statements on the 1972 federal asbestos standard. A few earlier papers, from the late 1940s to 1953, open the file, including minutes of a 1947 meeting with Dr. A. J. Lanza on a Waukegan worker's case.

What it shows

The file gathers in one place many of the papers behind Johns-Manville's own chronology for the early 1970s, several of which have their own pages in the Library: the Billerica examination program, the Tulane study at Marrero, Dr. Selikoff's request for Manville data, flagging Waukegan workers with pleural calcification, labeling of exported products, J-M's statements at the 1972 Labor Department hearing, the Pittsburg plant's list of pneumoconiosis cases and Dr. Wright's review of J-M's health and safety program. It also holds a November 1971 memo to file on a meeting about asbestosis litigation, Canadian Johns-Manville surveys of dust stations over the threshold limit, and 1972 papers on respirators, protective clothing and job rates under the new OSHA rules. The case lists name workers with their clock numbers, diagnoses and dates; under the owner's ruling, company medical records through 1976 are published.

About this copy

Pages 30 to 176 hold a memo of February 17, 1971, to J. B. Jobe, F. R. May and A. B. Marchant sending the University of Pittsburgh report "Mortality Patterns of a Group of Retired Asbestos Workers," with the report itself, and every page is stamped "Subject to Protective Order re Discovery Materials, March 30, 1983," from a California coordinated asbestos proceeding in San Francisco; that order is no longer in force. The same memo and report are also published on their own Library page. Page 29, a 1971 Federal Register page on the asbestos rules, is stamped "Produced JM-83."