Manville: The Asbestos Issue (1983)

Manville Corporation's Corporate Relations Department made this program in February 1983, six months after the company filed for Chapter 11, to answer the charge that it had covered up what it knew about asbestos. A presenter sets out each charge, often with clips from television reports in which plaintiff attorneys Michael Thornton and Ron Motley make it. Dennis Markusson, Manville's assistant corporate counsel in charge of asbestos litigation, then replies on each point: Dr. Lanza's study and its galley proofs, the 1935 letters between Sumner Simpson and Vandiver Brown, a plant manager's testimony about a "hush-hush policy", Dr. Kenneth Smith's testimony that the company turned down warning labels, and the Chapter 11 filing, which he calls "fair to everyone".

What it says about asbestos and health

It accepts that asbestos "has the potential for causing serious health effects", but argues that the early warnings concerned British textile workers, not insulators. It says "virtually no one occupationally exposed to asbestos contracts lung cancer unless they smoke", that Dr. Smith was "simply confused", and that the Simpson–Brown letters are "more ado about nothing".

About this copy

Our copy is a transfer of a print from Johns-Manville's own film archive (box 15-90018), shown in full, 29:27 long. Produced by the Manville Corporation Corporate Relations Department, with Smeloff Productions. Includes excerpts of television reports by WNEV Boston. Cable News Network and ABC.

Transcript

A machine transcript of the soundtrack, not yet checked against the film; names and technical words may be wrong.

What you're about to see and hear is quite a story. You may have heard it, or at least heard about it. The story has been going on for a long time and may touch all of society. The major television networks, as well as local stations across the country, have aired interviews and features about it. Newspapers have headlined it with front-page coverage and in-depth follow-up articles. In other words, the story has been anything but invisible.

As you'll see in videotaped reports from WNEV Boston, Cable News Network, and the ABC Television Network. Yet, with all of this coverage, you must ask yourself, did you hear all the story? Not just part of it. Not just one side, but all of it. You need both sides to completely make up your mind. The story?

It's an issue, really. simply put it's asbestos wide agreement that asbestos is a valuable useful mineral yet it has the potential for causing serious health effects both are facts the unique properties of asbestos make it irreplaceable in many products and as a fire retardant it has saved many lives but if the microscopic fibers are inhaled in excessive amounts it increases one's risk of asbestos related disease while this sounds fairly simple the entire asbestos issue is actually very complex since it involves unexpected health problems it is a highly emotional issue everyone it seems is looking for someone to blame and Manville Corporation as the largest producer of asbestos and asbestos products has been the object of much of this criticism. Because of the so-called cover-up charges repeatedly made against Manville, we're going to look at both sides of the issue, examining the allegations being made, then listening to the facts in perspective. The basic charge made against Manville is that asbestos has been a known health hazard since the late 1920s but the company hid that knowledge from its employees and customers listen to two plaintiff attorneys make this accusation on two separate television programs there's really no question that they had full and complete knowledge of the dangers of asbestos disease as far back as the 1930s and even 1920s as Dr. Nicholson has mentioned and they engage in a conspiracy with several other corporations that lasted over 50 years Johns-Manville knew since 1929 that asbestos would kill people, and they didn't get around to telling anybody until the late 1960s. Dennis Markusson is Manville's assistant corporate counsel in charge of asbestos litigation. One of the most unfortunate things about asbestos litigation is the way medical information has been misused or at least misinterpreted, particularly in terms of who knew what when. in it's often said that there was knowledge about asbestos and the hazards of asbestos back in the 1920s or 1930s but that knowledge was very minimal very early in time and really had very little to do with the type of cases that are involved in the litigation today namely cases involving insulation workers who use asbestos containing materials and at that with relatively small amounts of asbestos those early case reports were on British textile factory workers exposed to 100% raw asbestos fiber and did show some asbestosis from those reports Johns-Manville initiated the first studies on US asbestos textile workers in 1938 the US Public Health Service established a recommended level for safe exposure to asbestos a level below which it was believed asbestosis would disappear.

A 1946 U.S. government study of four naval shipyards found insulation workers exposed to levels below the Public Health Service standard and concluded those workers were not engaged in a hazardous occupation. However, Dr. Irving Selikoff's 1964 landmark study concluded that those insulation workers were at risk even even though their exposures were below the recommended level. Those workers are the subject of most of today's lawsuits. So to compare the factory experience of the 1930s, one type of worker, one type of very intense exposure to high levels of fiber in excess of what the US Public Health Service said was safe, and to say that that provides knowledge concerning an individual with very low exposure in my judgment is a misuse of the medical information and leads to false conclusions it's been acknowledged that there were early case reports of a health risk in asbestos workers what measures did Johns-Manville take to protect its employees I truly believe that Johns-Manville's conduct with respect to asbestos has been the most responsible conduct that one could imagine when the knowledge came in the 1920s and 1930s J-M's response was to initiate research to ascertain whether or not there was a problem in the asbestos factories in the United States to that end they initiated a research project in cooperation with the metropolitan life insurance company and the individual who headed that research project was dr Anthony Lanza Now, Dr. Lanza's name might not mean much today, but in the 1930s, he was the figure in occupational health and is often referred to as the father of occupational medicine in the United States.

Dr. Lanza's study was then published by the United States Public Health Service. Dr. Lanza's recommendations were adopted by the company. Dust control was installed in the plants, respirators were provided, physical examination examination programs were initiated and so it continued in the factories as it continues has continued over the decades and continues today And what actions did Johns-Manville take after the 1964 study on insulation workers in? 1964 when the company first learned that the insulation products containing small amounts of asbestos fiber fiber constituted a hazard to the workers using those products, it initiated a voluntary labeling program. In that voluntary labeling program, we started putting warning labels on this type of product to get the word out to the field as to hazard involved in the product, instructing the people to wear respirators, and generally advising them of the type of hazard and potential hazard involved with the product.

That warning program commenced some eight years prior to any labeling requirement being initiated by the federal government, and I think it's also interesting that the text of the label, the 1964 label of J-M, to this day is more comprehensive than the label required by the federal government. In addition to the labeling program, the necessity existed to get the word out to the men in the field well it was concluded that the best way to do that was to have seminars on safe handling procedures with the people who employ the workmen the contractors and for a period of two years in the mid-1960s those seminars were held throughout the United States that seminar by the way was also offered to the United States navy and for reasons known only to the United States Navy, they rejected that offer. In addition, in the late 1960s, Johns-Manville was the only company to join hands, if you will, with the Asbestos Workers Union and the United States Public Health Service and initiate a research program at Mount Sinai, to which end we provided money, personnel, equipment that time. We have explained that factory workers were at risk to asbestosis in the 1930s when was the association between asbestos exposure and lung cancer known I think the first definitive study on lung cancer was in 1955 by Sir Richard Doll from the United Kingdom in which again he studied the factory workers not the insulation workers dr. Doll concluded that there was an increased incidence of lung cancer and then from From Dr. Doll's studies, additional studies were fostered and promoted, and by, I think, the mid-1960s, again at the meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences in 1964, certainly the medical profession accepted that there was an increased incidence of lung cancer among individuals occupationally exposed to asbestos.

Now, it's particularly significant and important to note that subsequent research has disclosed that virtually no one occupationally exposed to asbestos contracts lung cancer unless they smoke, and in particular if they smoke cigarettes. There are doctors today suggesting that certain lung cancers biologically can't be related to asbestos. The third disease associated with asbestos is mesothelioma. this rare tumor was first linked with asbestos exposure in the early 1960s though it has causes other than asbestos the plaintiff attorneys have recently circulated a document entitled 50 years of deception in which they charged that although J-M did initiate studies they were of little value since the company changed the research findings and controlled their publication well I'm glad that even our adversaries acknowledge the fact that J-M was indeed the leader in asbestos research in the United States and indeed did initiate research over the decades as far back as the late 1920s early 1930s as to a charge that that research was controlled and contrived by Johns-Manville that is the biggest piece of nonsense ever if in fact there's any deception it's in the document that's being circulated, 50 Years of Deception. Probably one of the biggest contentions is that the initial research paper done by Dr. Lanza, which we spoke of earlier this morning, was that we controlled that publication. Again, it's a nice charge, but it doesn't have any basis in fact.

If you go to the facts surrounding the Lanza article and the galley proofs, you find that what Johns-Manville in fact told Dr. Lanza was that, and I quote, I am sure that you understand fully that no one in our organization is suggesting for a moment that you alter by one jot or tittle any of the scientific facts or inevitable conclusions revealed or justified by your survey. If you look at what Dr. Lanza wrote and you compare with what that with what was published by the United States Public Health Service after I might add peer group review nothing was changed by one jot or tittle makes a nice story just doesn't have any basis in fact other so-called evidence is the 50 year old correspondence plaintiff attorneys widely use in courtrooms congressional hearings and with the news media and during the course of the many lawsuits that have been filed letters and memos have turned up indicating the major companies were aware that there was a problem among them this correspondence between the chief counsel for Johns-Manville and the president of Raybestos-Manhattan in which Sumner Simpson of Raybestos says quote the less said about asbestos the better off we are unquote two days later Vandiver Brown of Manville replies saying quote I quite I quite agree with you that our interests are best served by having asbestosis receive the minimum of publicity, unquote. That was back in 1935. In all fairness, Manville feels those phrases should not be read out of context, but rather in relationship to the overall intent of the letters.

As I see it personally, we would be just as well off to say nothing about it until our survey is complete. complete. I think the less said about asbestos, the better off we are. But at the same time, we cannot lose track of the fact that there have been a number of articles on asbestos dust control and asbestosis in the British trade magazines. Johns-Manville responded, I quite agree with you that our interests are best served by having asbestosis receive the minimum of publicity, even if we should eventually decide to raise no objection to the publication of an article on asbestosis in the magazine in question I think we should warn the editors to use American data on the subject rather than English. Dr. Lanza has frequently remarked to me personally and in some of his papers that the clinical picture presented in North American localities where there is an asbestos dust hazard is considerably milder than that reported in England and South Africa.

These letters always seem to be a source of inquiry and there is there's nothing perhaps that represents more ado about nothing they're part of a series of correspondence that's been collectively known as the sumner simpson correspondence that's that's a portion of it and i guess that's a couple inches thick from which these letters are two single pieces of paper and the reason you don't hear much about the rest of those documents is because the other inch and 15-16ths, I guess, relate primarily to medical research that's being sponsored by the companies, the funding of that research, and pressing to get research results. There is, however, one piece of paper in there that I do want to share with you because I I think it sets the scene for coming to a conclusion that whatever was on the mind of Vandiver Brown and Sumner Simpson in the autumn of 1935, it certainly wasn't conspiracy. If you go back just a little bit in time, there was a meeting held on January 4, 1934, between Johns-Manville and Raybestos-Manhattan, in which they were talking about the research that the two companies were supporting and promoting. It's an interesting part of that, the minutes of that meeting, where it says the policies of the two companies concerned is that they desire through the operation of this committee and the resulting investigations to obtain each for itself the best practice possible for the elimination of dust and protection of employees. That's January 1934, a year and a half before the so-called infamous letters. That certainly doesn't suggest any kind of a cover-up or conspiracy.

I think it suggests responsible action. The other two inches of that material suggest the same thing. There's one other important point about those letters that I think conclusively shows that there was no cover-up or no conspiracy. Look at the date on the letters. Those letters are dated in the autumn of 1935. It was in January of 1935 that the Lanza study that we've talked about extensively this morning was published by the United States Public Health Service.

I would suggest to anyone that if cover-up and conspiracy is on your mind, you don't try to do it 10 months after you've released the results of a five-year medical study for peer group review and seen it published in the annals of the United States Public Health Service which i'm told at that time was the medical journal second leading medical journal in circulation in the United States it just plain doesn't make sense sworn testimony by former officials of Manville also seemed to implicate the company in a cover-up according to testimony of their former medical director and a plant manager and another supervisory official practice what was called by the plant manager not by the lawyers a hush-hush policy where they would not tell the workers not only wouldn't tell them about the hazards of asbestos but even after they developed asbestos they wouldn't even tell them they had asbestos Dennis Markusson notes there never has been such a policy at Manville and points to later testimony given by by the same plant manager. Well, I'm certainly well familiar with the testimony to which Mr. Motley refers. The important part of that testimony is to look at what that individual has said on numerous occasions over a continuum of time. The individual involved has been deposed perhaps three or four times, and he said something different every time. The last time he was deposed, he said, I really don't know what the policy was he's contradicted by the industrial relations manager who worked in the plant where he was the manager the industrial relations manager says the policy was to tell people but rather than argue about what somebody said or didn't say or what kind of meaning a transcript should have let's take a look at the facts as early as 1949 there was a written policy that said doctors should advise with employee and suggest corrections of defects disclosed by physical examination so as to maintain best possible health 1955 company policy our plant doctors are required by the American Medical Association code of ethics to discuss the results of physical examinations with each employee as if the employee were a patient.

Further examples. Again, let's look at the facts. As early as 1937, there is a record of disclosure to an employee in a plant. 1947, in a workers' compensation claim in California, the individual The individual who filed the claim testified that he had consulted with the company doctor who informed him he had asbestos disease. The record is replete with examples, factual examples, not allegations, but factual examples where employees have been told. The only modification to that policy of which I am aware is that there certainly were some times in early years where based on a doctor's medical judgment an employee was not advised at a particular point in time because in the physicians judgment that was the best thing to do the charge is usually made that Manville concealed knowledge of the hazards of asbestos because it would be bad for business and testimony by one of J-M's former medical directors seems to support that contention well we have the testimony before he died of the corporate medical director of Johns-Manville whose name was Kenneth Wallace Smith he served as medical director of Johns-Manville Corporation from 1944 to 1950 and then again from 1952 to 1966 and before he died he gave sworn testimony where he stated that the reason he that he recommended to Johns-Manville that they They placed warning labels on their asbestos products and that they turned him down on the grounds that it would hurt profits. There's no question that Dr.

Smith gave the testimony that Mr. Motley describes in 1976. The real issue is whether or not Dr. Smith actually made those recommendations with regard to asbestos-containing products in the early 1950s. When you examine statements like that, you look for corroboration. Dr.

Smith is now deceased, so we have to look for corroboration other places. We've talked, and the plaintiff's lawyers have talked, to everyone to whom Dr. Smith reported in the corporation. We've talked to everyone who worked for Dr. Smith and reported to him. him. We've talked to the doctors outside of the company with whom Dr.

Smith had dealings and we've searched the records of the company, the written records. The bottom line is there is not one single piece of corroboration that Dr. Smith ever made that recommendation to the company regarding asbestos containing products. In all probability, because there there were other things concerning labels in the mid-1950s, non- asbestos products, in all probability Dr. Smith was simply confused about which type of products were under discussion. And remember, that confusion is understandable.

Dr. Smith was testifying in 1976 about events that supposedly took place some 20 to 25 years prior to then, and some 10 years after he left the employment of the company so the charges continue the controversy goes on but what about the victims of asbestos related disease who is responsible how will they be compensated and are these thousands of lawsuits really the answer Mike Thornton plaintiff's attorney i'd also agree that that Johns-Manville is uh easily the largest culprit in this industry not the only one but the largest one and they engage in a conspiracy with several other corporations that lasted over 50 years and has resulted in in literally thousands and thousands of deaths in america and that's the reason why there's so many lawsuits now Manville has other thoughts on responsibility on lawsuits and on compensation well before we talk about responsibility let me make one comment on this conspiracy notion. Too often, conspiracy just gets repeated and repeated and repeated with no facts, and suddenly there's a conspiracy. I would hope that we can put the conspiracy notion to rest with some of the facts that we've gone over this morning. But turning to the area of responsibility, yes, the lawsuits are a problem. They're a major problem.

But they're not really the issue. The issue is if there is to be compensation delivered to individuals who have been, through no fault of their own, suffer from occupational disease, what we've learned from the litigation is that tort litigation is a terrible way, a terrible, inequitable way, uneven way to deliver that compensation. The reason for that is because the tort system is predicated upon a finding of fault. I don't believe Johns-Manville's at fault. I don't believe Johns-Manville is legally liable. I think the facts we've discussed support that argument.

Indeed, in the cases we've tried, juries have agreed about half the time and we've won about half the lawsuits we've tried. Of those cases against Johns- Manville, about half are filed by insulation workers from World World War II shipyards. The government has refused to accept responsibility for these employees, leaving the asbestos producers as the sole targets of these lawsuits. Today, many acknowledge that all responsible parties, including the federal government, should participate in an equitable compensation system. Today filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code. On August 26, 1982, In 1982, Manville filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code.

The reason? The overwhelming burden of asbestos lawsuits, both present and future projections, forced the company to bring the claims into one forum, whereby under the auspices of the court, they could receive fair and equitable treatment. Not surprisingly, plaintiff attorneys disagree on Manville's motives. lives. I also think that anyone familiar with the asbestos tragedy in this country, anyone familiar in any way with that situation, wouldn't believe that Manville truly went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy because it was concerned about paying off its future victims. Dennis Markusson explains the unusual step of filing Chapter 11. The filing of the Chapter 11 was not an easy decision, But it was a decision that was predicated upon fairness.

Let me tell you why. With 17,000 lawsuits pending, and we'd already proved all we can prove in those, liability is the linchpin of those lawsuits' fault, if you will. We proved that we can win half of them. We've proved that the plaintiffs will win about half of them. We know that millions of dollars will be spent on transaction costs, namely attorney's fees, that don't benefit anyone except some attorneys. When we add to that a prediction of the number of future claims and the requirement that we reserve those future claims on the books of the corporation, the result is a stranglehold on the company so that it would slowly bleed to death.

That wouldn't benefit present claimants, future claimants, customers, suppliers, creditors, employees. Wouldn't benefit anyone. That's the inevitable track we were on. Chapter 11 gives us a way to put the question of fault behind us and to deal with everyone on a responsible, uniform basis. basis, to provide an assurance that we can estimate the future number of claims, estimate the amount of money that it's going to take to deal in a responsible, equitable fashion with those claims, and uniformly with all those claims. And at the same time, to keep Manville a profitable, viable operating company, because that's essential to be able to fund anything, and at the same time also be fair to our creditors, our suppliers, our customers, and all the employees that have stuck with us over the years. I think it was an innovative thing to do, and I think the most important part about the Chapter 11 is more than anything else, it's fair to everyone.

Now you've heard the story, not just one side, but all of it. As I said in the beginning, you need the whole story to make up your mind. Should you have questions about Manville and the asbestos issue, contact Manville Corporation, Corporate Relations, Post Office Box 5108, Denver, Colorado, 80217.