John A. McKinney, The Asbestos Issue, Presentation to the Houston Society of Financial Analysts (1980)

A four-page printed text of "The Asbestos Issue," a talk given on April 30, 1980, to the Houston Society of Financial Analysts by John A. McKinney, chairman and chief executive officer of Johns-Manville. McKinney told the analysts that knowledge of the hazard fell into two periods, "1930 to 1964 and 1964 to today": asbestosis among mill and factory workers was known from 1930, but "it was not until 1964 that medical studies identified the health hazards to insulation workers." He reported that J-M was a defendant in over 3,000 cases with more than 4,500 plaintiffs and had won 11 of the last 15 cases tried.

What it shows

The talk sets out the company's public defense in 1980. McKinney said that "but for cigarette smoking, there would be no significant lung cancer related to excessive asbestos exposure," that the U.S. Public Health Service's 1938 study (Dreessen) set a standard that "remained unchanged and unchallenged for nearly thirty years," and that the Navy's 1946 study (Fleischer-Drinker) found shipyard insulation work "not a hazardous occupation." He placed responsibility for wartime shipyard exposure on the Navy, and said J-M was "not legally or morally to blame for the asbestos problem." Of punitive damages, he said plaintiffs' lawyers seeking "big dollars" alleged that J-M "covered up knowledge of asbestos-related disease," while the evidence showed "J-M sponsoring one medical study after another from the 30's on." He also described J-M's insurance coverage (about $350 million for exposures before 1976), its suit against its insurers, its push for federal asbestos compensation legislation, and its opposition to proposed rules restricting asbestos in finished products. J-M filed for bankruptcy two years later.