Asbestos risks: Manville tries to pass the buck

Our plain-English summary of Asbestos risks: Manville tries to pass the buck, by S. Budiansky (Nature, 1983).

The study

• Author: S. Budiansky
• Journal: Nature
• Published: 1983;304(5924):299
• Type of article: News
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This is a short news report in Nature, not a research study, and it presents no new medical data. The author reported that the Manville Corporation, an asbestos producer that had filed for bankruptcy the previous summer, sued the US federal government to recover $1 million it had paid to wartime shipyard workers harmed by asbestos exposure. Manville claimed the government failed to enforce its own shipyard safety standards during the Second World War and breached an implied contract to indemnify the company. The suit relied on documents showing that the Navy and the Maritime Commission knew of excess asbestos exposure among shipyard workers. Inspections of the time found up to five times the US Public Health Service dust limit of 5 million particles per cubic foot. Roughly half of the 20,000 claims against Manville involved shipyard workers. The article noted that the Public Health Service standard addressed only asbestosis, and that plaintiffs said Manville knew in the 1930s of lung cancer among its own workers. The author wrote that the evidence of government neglect alone was not sufficient grounds for the case.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: news report (journalism), not a research study
• Who was studied: No study population. The report concerns a lawsuit over payments to US shipyard workers exposed to asbestos during the Second World War, and claims filed against Manville Corporation.
• Exposure: Asbestos used in ship construction for fireproofing and insulation in Navy and private shipyards during the Second World War. No fiber type is named.
• Main results:
  • Manville sued the federal government to recover $1 million it had paid to wartime shipyard workers.
  • Roughly half of the 20,000 claims filed against Manville involved shipyard workers. Manville had settled some 3,000 of these before its bankruptcy.
  • Manville's suit relied on documents, some recently declassified, showing that the Navy and the Maritime Commission were aware of excess asbestos exposure among shipyard workers.
  • A 1941 memorandum from the naval commander in charge of preventive medicine stated that the men were not being protected as they should be.
  • Health inspections at the time found up to five times the asbestos dust limit then recommended by the US Public Health Service (5 million particles per cubic foot).
  • Shipyard employment rose from a pre-war level of 168,000 to a peak of 1.5 million.
  • The government recognized workers' compensation claims from employees of government-owned shipyards, but not from private yards.
  • The Public Health Service standard addressed only asbestosis. None of the government documents cited by Manville suggested the government knew of asbestos's carcinogenic effects.
  • According to plaintiffs in liability cases, Manville was aware as early as the 1930s that its own workers were developing lung cancer from asbestos exposure. Depositions from former employees acknowledged a so-called hush-hush policy among management.
• The authors' conclusion: The author wrote that, although the suit brought to light apparently damning evidence of government neglect, that evidence alone was not a sufficient ground for Manville's case.

Related studies

• Corporate corruption of medical literature: asbestos studies concealed by W.R. Grace & Co — D. Egilman, W. Wallace, et al. (1998)
• Financial disclosure and toxic products: encouraging wall street to anticipate product risk and exercise precaution — S. Lewis, M. Byrne (2009)
• Canada, chrysotile, and the search for truth — T. Ogden (2008)
• Renovation and renewal — A. Katelaris (2011)
• Identification and enumeration of asbestos fibers in the mining environment: mission and modification to the Federal Asbestos Standard — A.M. Langer (2008)
• Justice for asbestos victims and the politics of compensation: the French experience — A. Thébaud-Mony (2003)

Browse more research in Nature, or return to medical research.