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In the early 20th century asbestos had become a widely used industrial product, found in insulation in shipbuilding and boilers, as brake lining, and as a reinforcing material in concrete, water and sewage pipes, fire resistant insulation boards, floor tiles and coverings, wallboard, ceiling tiles, and in gas masks, lifts and machinery. As early as 1918 the Prudential insurance Company ceased to sell life insurance coverage to asbestos workers because of the "health-injurious conditions of the industry."
By the 1920's, Management in US asbestos mining and processing companies and manufacturing enterprises that used asbestos knew that exposure to its fibers presented major health hazards for workers. Yet these companies did not tell their workers about the health risks, nor did they provide adequate ventilation, masks, or other safety equipment that could have reduced their exposure.
The US Bureau of Mines was also aware of the problem. In Outrageous Misconduct, his groundbreaking expose of the asbestos industry cover-up, Paul Brodeur cited a letter from a Bureau of Mines official in1933 to Eagle-Picher, an asbestos manufacturer, that stated "it is now known that asbestos dust is one of the most dangerous dusts to which man is exposed."
Asbestos companies continued to insist that there was no connection between the use of asbestos and the high rates of asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma found in workers exposed to asbestos. In 1933 29 percent of workers in one Johns-Manville facility had asbestosis. Eleven employees brought lawsuits against the company for its failure to notify them of the risk, and failure to take any preventive or mitigation action. Johns-Manville settled those lawsuits, and wrote into the terms of settlement that the employees' attorney could never again directly or indirectly participate in the bringing of new actions against the company. This requirement indicates that Johns Manville clearly understood its own liability, and its contribution to the illness and death of its employees.
During World War II, naval shipyards on both coasts employed many thousands of workers. At their peak, US shipyards and their subcontractors employed 1,337,000 workers in skilled trades, clerical, and management, and engineering, in building and repairing the country's military and commercial fleets. Asbestos products were used extensively in this work. Shipyard workers often worked in enclosed, unventilated spaces where the concentration of airborne asbestos particles was so high that the air was white. Suppliers of asbestos products and shipyard owners made no disclosure to this patriotic workforce of the lethal risks they faced working around asbestos.
A decade later Dr Irving Selikoff of New York's Mt Sinai School of Medicine grew increasingly concerned about the unusual incidence of lung cancers and mesotheliomas among asbestos workers. He embarked on a far-reaching study of the health of all 1117 members of New York and New Jersey locals of the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers.
He found evidence of asbestosis in over half them. The longer the exposure to asbestos, the greater likelihood of a worker's developing cancer. He also showed that the death rate among asbestos workers was 25% higher than expected. His groundbreaking study, published in 1964, irrefutably established the dangers of asbestos exposure.
After the publication of Selikoff's study, neither the companies nor their hired experts could reasonably continue to claim ignorance of the dangers. The way now lay open for plaintiffs' lawyers to file product liability suits on behalf of terminally ill asbestos workers against the manufacturers of asbestos products.
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