R. H. Mereness to Asbestos Information Association Members on HEW's Asbestos Awareness Campaign (1978)

A memo of July 6, 1978, from R. H. Mereness, executive director of the Asbestos Information Association/North America, telling member companies about the public information campaign that Joseph Califano, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, announced on April 26 "to inform doctors, workers and others about the increased risks of asbestos exposure." Mereness enclosed the campaign's communication strategy, a sample radio spot, and the statements Johns-Manville and the Association issued in reply to Califano. The bundle ends with an unrelated Raybestos-Manhattan memo of August 11, 1978, from Milton Q. Scowcroft to D. W. Broker about a customer's asbestos cloth.

What it shows

The radio spot, written for World War II shipyard workers, told listeners: "Even if you feel good, check with your doctor, stop smoking and get prompt medical treatment for respiratory illness." The statement by John A. McKinney, Johns-Manville's president, said that "Past conditions in which workers were exposed to asbestos bear no relationship whatsoever to regulated conditions under which we work today," and quoted Dr. Paul Kotin that lung cancer would not be a problem among asbestos workers "were it not for cigarette smoking." In the Raybestos-Manhattan memo, written after an OSHA inspector questioned a laundry's use of Chicago Dryer Company's resinated asbestos cloth, Scowcroft wrote that the company was "eager to help our customers preserve and expand their use of asbestos textile products" and offered to take dust counts at a laundry.

In Johns-Manville's index

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

R.H. Mereness (Executive Director, AIA) memo to Members, 7/6/78, entitled "HEW Public Awareness on Asbestos Exposure Campaign." Mereness discusses the statement made on April 26 by HEW Secretary Califano on the risk of lung cancer and other serious diseases to workers who have been heavily exposed to asbestos dust. Mereness encloses a copy of the "Communication Strategy" developed for HEW's National Cancer Institute by a consulting public relations firm and a sample of one of the radio spot announcements. Also enclosed are statements issued by J-M and the AIA following the release of the Califano statement. M.Q. Scowcroft memo to D.W. Broker (R-M), 8/11/78, entitled "Chicago Dryer Company, Chicago, Illinois." This letter responds to Broker's letter of 6/20 concerning an OSHA inspector's apparent harassment of a laundry using Chicago Dryer's resinated asbestos cloth as feed ribbons. Scowcroft states that the only way we can give genuine support to Chicago Dryer is to help them develop data showing that the use of the product does not emit asbestos fibers in normal use or application. R-M is willing to take actual dust counts at a typical Chicago Dryer laundry installation.

About this copy

This is document 680 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-002363 to CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-002375.