Center for Science in the Public Interest, Petition to the Federal Trade Commission for Asbestos Warnings on Consumer Products (1973)

A five-page "Petition for Administrative Relief" dated March 22, 1973, filed with the Federal Trade Commission by Albert J. Fritsch, A. Blakeman Early and the Center for Science in the Public Interest of Washington, D.C., asking the Commission "to protect the public from the hazards of asbestos." Drawing on the Center's report Asbestos and You and on NIOSH's 1972 criteria document, it described asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma, warned that "a minimum safe dosage has not been established" for cancer, and cited cases of mesothelioma after home boiler work and remodeling. It asked the FTC to order makers of consumer products that could release asbestos to disclose in their advertising "that such products contain asbestos which is harmful when inhaled or ingested," to investigate which products contained asbestos, and to require asbestos to be listed on labels.

What it shows

By early 1973 public interest groups were pressing for asbestos warnings on household and consumer products, not only in the workplace. The petition named blankets, brake linings, cement products, clothing, curtains, filters, insulation, paints, textiles and wallboard among the products that should carry warnings, and argued that "the burden to demonstrate the safety of asbestos-containing products rests squarely on the manufacturer." The copy here bears the FTC's receipt stamps of March 26, 1973.