Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) Medical Department, Summary of the Plant Industrial Hygiene Problems in Esso Refineries (1949)

A "Company Confidential" report of April 12, 1949, from the Research Section of the Medical Department of Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), the forerunner of Exxon, gathering four papers by its industrial hygienists on health hazards in the company's refineries and laboratories. C. M. Berry surveys problems across the Esso refineries, J. W. Hammond reports on a 1948 survey of the Baytown, Texas, refinery, R. S. Bonsib covers research projects at the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, refinery, and N. V. Hendricks describes the department's work. Berry lists "asbestos dust in insulating operations" among refinery dust exposures, and the summary table for Baytown lists silica and asbestos with the potential diseases silicosis, fibrosis and "cancer of lungs," affecting brick masons, insulators, laborers and pipe benders.

What it shows

Hammond wrote that asbestos exposure at Baytown was "not extensive" in normal operation, but that insulators often had to work "inside of a closed space with limited ventilation, making it possible that a high concentration of asbestos dust may be engendered," and that "asbestos insulations are sawed by power saws which give off rather heavy clouds of dust. This problem should be studied." He urged dust surveys of the places where silicates were handled, which "will be invaluable for our records should we later be confronted with complaints and claims from former employees." The report shows that in 1949 Standard Oil's own medical department knew its insulators could be heavily exposed to asbestos dust and listed asbestos, with silica, among materials that could cause lung cancer, though it had not yet measured the exposure.

About this copy

The copy is marked Plaintiff's Exhibit EXX 64.