Profit and Accountability

Our plain-English summary of Profit and Accountability, by P. Kotin (1976).

The study

• Author: P. Kotin
• Published: Industrial Health, Volume 6 No2. (1976)
• Our copy: from Johns-Manville's own medical library. The article is still under copyright, so we describe it here rather than post it.

In plain English

This item was not a research study but a newsletter summary of a keynote talk. The summary appeared in the Summer 1976 issue of Saint Joseph Hospital's Industrial Health bulletin in Denver, Colorado. The talk was given by Paul Kotin, M.D., Senior Vice President for Health, Safety and Environment at Johns-Manville Corporation, at the hospital's annual conference on May 20. No people, measurements or data were studied, and asbestos was not mentioned by name. The author said that industry's responsibility for health and safety had not been clearly defined in the past. Hazards were becoming harder to identify, the author said, and workers had to cooperate: not wearing protective equipment, or smoking cigarettes combined with exposure to dusts or fumes, could undo safeguards. Points listed for industry action included a responsibility to employees who may develop occupational disease from past high levels of exposure, using regulatory standards as guidelines for further reduction, supporting research, monitoring, and educating employees. It closed by saying that industry cannot afford to react, it has to act, and that the worker's well-being has to be the prime consideration.

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: Newsletter summary of a conference keynote presentation (opinion and commentary, not a research study)
• Who was studied: Not applicable: no people, workers or data were studied
• Exposure: General workplace hazards. The summary mentions dusts or fumes, and cigarette smoking combined with them. No specific fiber type or product is named.
• Main results:
  • The author stated that industry's responsibility regarding health and safety had not been clearly defined in the past
  • The author stated that hazards were becoming more difficult to identify and measure
  • The author stated that failure to wear protective equipment, or smoking cigarettes combined with exposure to dusts or fumes, can undo safeguards meant to protect the worker
  • The author stated that hazardous agents are particularly dangerous when exposure is at concentrations so low that there are no initial signs of adverse effects
  • Among the listed points for industry action, the author stated that industry has a responsibility to employees who may develop occupational disease as a result of past high levels of exposure
  • The author stated that standards set by regulatory agencies should be used as guidelines for further reduction of dangers
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that industry must act rather than react, and that the worker's well-being has to be the prime consideration

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Johns-Manville, Occupational Disease.

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