What the Asbestos Industry Knew
Asbestos workers and their families understandably were not looking for articles on asbestos in JAMA and Lancet, but the asbestos companies were, or certainly should have been. With more than 700 articles available in the medical and scientific literature before 1964, it would be bad policy indeed to reward companies for ignoring this evidence, to the extent they did or could. And the law will not reward companies for taking an “ostrich-like attitude.” Companies owe it to the public to look for information on their products, to know the dangers, and to make those products safe or warn consumers of the risk. The question we should ask is not simply what did the manufacturers actually know, but rather what did scientists and experts know? What should the manufacturers have known to satisfy their duty to the public?
Manufacturers of asbestos-containing products and many of the companies who employed the men and women who worked with and around those products have knowingly exposed workers to asbestos hazards for decades. The attitude of many of these companies is best illustrated by the testimony of Charles H. Roemer, a former employee of Unarco, who described a meeting between Unarco officials and Johns-Manville President Lewis Brown and his brother, Vandiver Brown, in the early 1940s:
“I’ll never forget, I turned to Mr. Brown, one of the Browns made this crack (that Unarco managers were a bunch of fools for notifying employees who had asbestosis), and I said, ‘Mr. Brown, do you mean to tell me you would let them work until they dropped dead?’ He said, ‘Yes. We save a lot of money that way.’”1
This callous attitude is reflected time and again in industry documents over the span of decades. The companies that manufactured and used asbestos products had many sources of information demonstrating the hazards of asbestos exposure: scientific and medical literature; industry trade organizations; and corporate documents from industry members.
To give a more clear picture of the way these companies worked, we have provided profiles of several major asbestos manufacturers:
- W.R. Grace & Co.
- Pittsburgh Corning Corporation
- U.S. Gypsum
- National Gypsum Company
- Owens-Corning / Owens-Illinois
- Johns-Manville
- Raymark
These companies are simply examples; there were many more. The many documents produced and possessed by the asbestos industry share a common theme: uncontroverted evidence that asbestos exposure causes disease and death in people exposed to the fiber. This information could have prevented countless asbestos-related deaths had these companies used this information to protect workers and the public.
1 Testimony of Charles H. Roemer about the meeting of Unarco officials with Johns-Manville President Lewis Brown and his brother, Vandiver Brown, in 1942 or 1943; deposition taken April 25, 1984 in the matter of Johns-Manville Corp. et al. v. The United States of America, U.S. Claims Court Civ. No. 465-83C.
