Fleischer-Drinker Study

The Fleischer-Drinker Study was a 1946 industrial hygiene investigation of asbestos pipe-covering insulation workers in U.S. Navy shipyards, published in the Journal of Industrial Hygiene and Toxicology. The authors concluded that pipe covering with asbestos was 'not a dangerous trade,' finding only three cases of asbestosis among approximately 1,074 workers examined. The study's flawed methodology and reassuring conclusion were later used for decades by asbestos manufacturers to argue that insulation work posed little risk.

Origin

The study was conducted by Walter Fleischer, Frederick Viles, Ralph Gade, and Philip Drinker (Drinker being a prominent Harvard industrial hygienist) and published in 1946 as 'A Health Survey of Pipe Covering Operations in Constructing Naval Vessels.' It was undertaken at the request of the U.S. Navy during the wartime shipbuilding boom, when amosite and chrysotile insulation use was at its peak.

Significance in Asbestos Context

For Navy veterans, shipyard workers, and insulators diagnosed with mesothelioma or asbestosis, the Fleischer-Drinker Study is often central to the historical record of their case. Asbestos manufacturers (particularly Johns-Manville, Owens-Corning, and others) cited this study for decades as evidence that they had no reason to warn workers, claiming the leading science of the day declared pipe covering safe. Plaintiffs' experts counter that the study was deeply flawed: it examined workers with very short job tenure (most under 10 years, far below the typical latency for asbestos disease), used only chest X-rays without modern diagnostic tools, ignored mesothelioma and lung cancer entirely, and looked only at active workers rather than those who had left the trade due to illness. Understanding this study matters because defendants still invoke it to argue 'state of the art' defenses, claiming that pre-1960s science did not establish insulation hazards, and your legal team will likely need to rebut it directly.

Example Sentence

The defense expert pointed to the Fleischer-Drinker Study to argue that the company could not have known shipyard insulation work was hazardous in 1950, but our expert explained why the study's short follow-up period made it incapable of detecting mesothelioma.

Related Terms

State of the Art Defense, Sumner Simpson Papers, Selikoff Studies, Latency Period, Asbestosis, Navy Shipyard Exposure

Notes

• If you worked in a Navy shipyard or as an insulator before 1970, ask your attorney whether defendants in your case have raised the Fleischer-Drinker Study and what rebuttal experts have used in similar cases.
• Preserve any service records, MOS or rating documentation, ship assignments, and union records. These establish exposure timelines that help counter 'state of the art' arguments built on this study.
• The study did not examine mesothelioma, which had not yet been linked to asbestos in 1946; this is a critical limitation your legal team can highlight if your diagnosis is mesothelioma rather than asbestosis.
• Later epidemiology, particularly the work of Irving Selikoff beginning in 1964, directly contradicted Fleischer-Drinker by showing massive excess cancer mortality in insulators. Ask whether your experts will contrast these bodies of evidence.