Nancy Tait, Asbestos Kills: New Facts 1977, with the Asbestos Information Committee's Commentary (1977)

Seventeen pages: a British pamphlet, "Asbestos Kills: New Facts 1977," by Nancy Tait, "Churchill Fellow 1976," and a four-page "Commentary on Mrs Nancy Tait's pamphlet" by the Asbestos Information Committee, the British industry's information body, dated June 27, 1977, and marked "copy for Mr. A.A. Cross." Tait wrote that "the incidence of asbestos disease is under-recorded," cited studies showing chrysotile to be dangerous, described asbestos brought home on workers' clothes, and called for help for victims and their families and action "to counteract the misleading information published by the Asbestos Information Committee." The Committee's reply disputed her figures point by point, while saying "Nobody in the UK has ever claimed that 'chrysotile is safe'."

What it shows

The commentary, issued by a committee "supported by BBA Group Ltd, Cape Industries Ltd, Eternit Bld. Products Ltd, Turner & Newall Ltd, and other British asbestos companies," shows how the industry answered an early campaigner for asbestos victims. It said, for example, that "most of the fibres breathed in are also breathed out or dealt with by the body's rejection mechanism," and that chrysotile was "probably only likely to be a cause of mesothelioma where exposure has been particularly heavy." The copy came to J. H. Marsh of Raybestos-Manhattan, apparently through Alex Cross of Cape Asbestos.

In Johns-Manville's index

Johns-Manville's legal department indexed the Motley 1,000 in 1984. Its index describes this document as follows:

Pamphlet entitled Asbestos Kills - New Facts 1977, by Nancy Tait (Churchill Fellow 1976). Document on Asbestos Information Committee stationary entitled "Asbestos Kills - New Facts? Commentary on Mrs. Nancy Tait's pamphlet May, 1977."

About this copy

This is document 714 of the Motley 1,000, from the set the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust's records facility certified as true copies, pages CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-002608 to CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-002624.